RICHMOND, Va. — The Virginia Department of Health is having to adjust after it was told by the federal government that it would be receiving less COVID-19 vaccine doses than anticipated.
The state was informed by Operation Warp Speed – a public-private partnership that aimed to accelerate the development of a COVID-19 vaccine – that it would instead receive 370,650 doses of the vaccine in December from Pfizer and Moderna.
That's less than the expected 480,000 doses, according to a VDH news release.
Health care workers and long-term care residents are still top priority groups to receive the vaccine.
However, leaders in senior care said they don’t see this reduction as a major setback. Steve Zollos, CEO of Senior Services of Southeastern Virginia, said he anticipates future batches of vaccines will be larger and the state will be able to administer those more quickly.
“I don’t think that little bit of a slowdown is going to be a major impact for us," Zollos said. "Of course, we want the vaccine to be out as much as it can and as fast as it can, but this has never been seen before, not in Virginia and not in our country.”
Eighteen Virginia hospitals received initial shipments of the Pfizer vaccine this week, and they began dispersing a total of 72,125 doses to frontline healthcare workers.
Virginia has already placed an order for 146,400 doses of the Moderna vaccine. That vaccine is expected to be approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration soon, and will begin arriving the week of December 21.
Health officials said the vaccine estimates are subject to change.
Other state health departments have said the decrease is due to shipments of the Pfizer vaccine, but the pharmaceutical company disagreed.
The company said there were no shipments containing the vaccine that 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 said in its statement.
"We have continuously shared with Operation Warp Speed (OWS) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through weekly meetings every aspect of our production and distribution capabilities. They have visited our facilities, walked the production lines and been updated on our production planning as information has become available."
Read the full statement below:
The Virginia Department of Health did not answer questions from 13News Now about the reduction in vaccine doses, instead referring back to its statement.
The department did not say if the decrease would affect the speed of the vaccine distribution or answer what changed to affect this distribution estimate for Virginia, specifically.
VDH said it is working closely with the CDC to ensure a smooth and equitable vaccine deployment.