Va. expects about 110,000 fewer doses of COVID-19 vaccine than previously announced

Virginia expects to receive 370,650 doses of the COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna by the end of the year instead of 480,000 as previously announced, the Virginia Department of Health said Friday.

Operation Warp Speed, the federal response for vaccinating millions of Americans, informed VDH late Thursday of the decrease in doses. Other states — including Oregon, Iowa, Maine, Illinois and Florida — are also receiving fewer doses than initially expected.

Virginia this week received 72,125 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which the state began distributing to frontline health workers at 18 hospitals. The state also has ordered 146,400 doses of the Moderna vaccine, which is expected to be approved soon by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. If all goes to plan, the Moderna doses will arrive the week of Dec. 21, VDH said.

Health care providers and long-term care facility residents are the top two priority groups, although with fewer doses, it will take longer to vaccinate these populations, which number about 500,000 people in Virginia.

The VDH announcement did not detail the reasons behind the shortfall in the number of initial doses, which were expected to be delivered by the end of the month. According to a Washington Post report, a senior White House official said the revised estimates were the result of states’ asking for an expedited timeline for a second round of allocated doses. The official said that since Pfizer is producing doses daily, fewer were available by moving back the timeline from Friday to Tuesday.

However, Pfizer issued a release Thursday that seemed to contradict the White House, saying the company is “not having any production issues with our COVID-19 vaccine, and no shipments containing the vaccine are on hold or delayed. This week, we successfully shipped all 2.9 million doses that we were asked to ship by the U.S. government to the locations specified by them. We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses.”

Pfizer added, “We remain confident in our ability to deliver up to 50 million doses globally this year and up to 1.3 billion next year.”

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