By Tim Mastro

DOVER — The severe winter storms throughout the country prevented Delaware from receiving its shipments of the COVID-19 vaccine this week.

With no additional doses arriving this week, Dr. Rick Hong, the Delaware Division of Public Health’s medical director, said numerous vaccine appointments had to be rescheduled. Dr. Hong said during a COVID-19 vaccination task force meeting Friday, the state is hopeful the missing doses will arrive Monday.

“We are hoping that we are going to get our vaccine shipment on Monday after our recent communication from CDC and the federal government,” Dr. Hong said. “We appreciate everyone’s patience on this. You can imagine weather is taking its toll in many ways, including our vaccine supply.”

According to Dr. Hong’s presentation at the task force’s meeting, the state has 391 enrolled provider sites for vaccine distribution with 105 more providers pending approval and an additional 73 which have completed the DPH’s interest survey. Yet all of these providers are facing the same vaccine shortage.

The state’s drive-thru vaccination clinic at Dover International Speedway for second doses is still on schedule to begin Sunday, through a partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

These second-dose appointments are only available for those who received a first dose from the Division of Public Health at one of the following events: Dover Division of Motor Vehicles on Jan. 16-18, Salesianum School in Wilmington on Jan. 18, Delaware City DMV on Jan. 22-24 and Georgetown DMV on Jan. 23-24. Registration can be done online at de.gov/fema.

Due to the vaccine scarcity, the state has shifted its focus to second doses during the last two weeks in an attempt to ensure those who attended the mass vaccination sites at DMVs in January will receive their second dose on time.

“With the state’s continued limited vaccine supply, there’s always that difficult decision between first doses for those who have no immunity to COVID-19 versus completing the series with the second dose to maximize the first dose that was given out.” Dr. Hong said. “This is still a difficult decision and we appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding that we have to make these tough decisions.”

For those looking for their second dose who are not able to register for the FEMA event because they did not receive their first at a DMV event or Salesianum school, Dr. Hong said there is a chance FEMA could set up an additional day for those individuals’ second doses at Dover International Speedway if enough supply remains.

“If there’s capacity in terms of vaccine supply leftover or capacity for slots, we will inform the public that there might be an opportunity to open that up,” Dr. Hong said.

Dr. Hong said the lack of supply, which has been exacerbated by the severe weather preventing shipments from arriving on time, could cause more first-dose appointments to be canceled or postponed in the upcoming days.

“Because of the continue availability constraints the number of first-dose appointments may still be limited,” Dr. Hong said. “Unfortunately, there might be canceled appointments, canceled events or postponements of such until availability of supply becomes present.”

Dr. Hong added the state expects its supply will catch up to what was expected after the winter storms move out.

The DPH provided a statement stating any canceled appointments at pharmacies are currently in the process of being rescheduled.

“If you received your first dose at Walgreens, Giant, Camden Pharmacy or ChristianaCare, you may have received notice recently that your second-dose appointment was canceled or postponed,” the statement read.

“Due to limited supply from the federal government and winter weather events, these second doses may be delayed, which is why you may have received a cancellation notice. DPH is supplying each location with corresponding second doses for every person who received a first dose at those locations. Each of these entities has already begun rescheduling these appointments. If you have not received a notification to reschedule yet, please be patient. These locations are working through their lists based on the supply they are receiving.”

According to the state’s immunization information system DelVAX, Delaware has received 162,050 doses of vaccine directly plus an additional 27,000 doses delivered via the Federal Pharmacy Program as of Thursday at 11:59 p.m. The DPH is reporting 169,677 doses administered and 19,373 remaining in inventory.

However, the total doses remaining may not currently reflect the true number of doses available for use at any given time, according to the DPH. This is due to the fact that federal allocation and delivery of vaccine doses is currently based on five doses per Pfizer vial and 10 doses per Moderna vial. But vaccine providers are typically able to administer six doses of Pfizer vaccine per vial, which would lead to a larger number of doses administered than delivered, the DPH said.

The federal government will adjust the doses delivered in the coming weeks to include the sixth Pfizer dose now that vaccinators around the country have reliably been able to obtain it.