Delaware turning down vaccine doses from feds

Area pharmacies still getting COVID shots through U.S. program

By Tim Mastro
Posted 6/11/21

DOVER — As the United States is confronted with an ever-growing surplus of the COVID-19 vaccines, Delaware is one of several states turning down doses from the federal government due to its …

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Delaware turning down vaccine doses from feds

Area pharmacies still getting COVID shots through U.S. program

Posted

DOVER — As the United States is confronted with an ever-growing surplus of the COVID-19 vaccines, Delaware is one of several states turning down doses from the federal government due to its large inventory.

Delaware did not receive any shipments of vaccine this week from the federal government, according to the Delaware Division of Public Health. The state is still receiving doses via the Federal Pharmacy Program with a combined 6,400 new doses allocated to the state this week.

Since May 27, there have been only two shipments of vaccine to Delaware — 6,750 doses arrived on June 1, followed by 6,300 doses on June 2.

Alabama, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Utah and Oklahoma have also stopped ordering new vaccines from the government. Other states, such as Iowa and Nevada, are still ordering new doses but in dramatically reduced amounts. This has added to the ballooning federal stockpile.

The U.S. averaged about 870,000 new injections per day at the end of last week, down sharply from a high of about 3.3 million a day on average in mid-April, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

President Joe Biden wants to have 70% of the adult U.S. population at least partially vaccinated by July 4. But the U.S. could well fail to meet that target. As of Friday, 64% of Americans 18 and older have had at least one dose, by the CDC’s count.

Delaware is at 67.7% of its population vaccinated, according to the CDC. This includes Delawareans who have been vaccinated in other states and vaccinations at such locations as the Department of Veterans Affairs and Dover Air Force Base, which do not report their numbers to the DPH.

Some states, especially in the Northeast, have already reached that 70% goal for adults, while places like Mississippi and Alabama are nowhere close. Mississippi, in fact, has been transferring large quantities of vaccine to other states and the federal government.

Amid the glut, the White House has announced plans to share 80 million doses globally by the end of June and also buy 500 million more doses of the Pfizer vaccine and donate them to 92 lower-income countries and the African Union over the next year.

With demand stronger in Maine and Rhode Island, the two states received 32,400 doses each from Mississippi, where only about one-third of the state is at least partially vaccinated. Mississippi has also transferred 800,000 doses to a federal vaccine pool. The state has seen demand plunge to levels not seen since the opening weeks of the vaccine rollout, with only 18,400 doses administered there this week.

Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said Friday that the state health department was more than happy to help states in the Northeast.

“In Mississippi, if people don’t understand how important it is to keep alive, we want to protect other Americans,” he told the Associated Press.

In Tennessee and North Carolina, demand for the COVID-19 vaccine has slowed down so much that they have given millions of doses back to the federal government, even though less than half of their total populations are vaccinated.

Oklahoma has not asked for new doses from the government for more than a month, spurning its 200,000-a-week allotment.

The stockpiles are becoming more daunting each week. Oklahoma has more than 700,000 doses on shelves but is administering only 4,500 a day and has 27,000 Pfizer and Moderna doses that are set to expire at the end of the month.

Millions of doses of the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine were set to expire nationwide this month before the government extended their dates by six weeks, but some leaders acknowledge it will be difficult to use them up even by then.

“We really cannot let doses expire. That would be a real outrage, given the need to get vaccines to some under-vaccinated communities in the U.S. and the glaring gap in vaccinations and the inequity of vaccinations that we have globally,” Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, chair of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco told the Associated Press.

Gov. John Carney revealed last week the state did accept some extra Johnson & Johnson doses from West Virginia.

Delaware has received a total of 62,700 doses of the one-dose vaccine, 36,600 doses were shipped directly to the state and 26,100 were allocated through the Federal Pharmacy Program. As of Thursday at 11:59 p.m., it has used 41,294 of the 62,700 doses.

Of the 1,205,285 total doses received in Delaware, 953,019 have been administered with 252,266 remaining in the state’s inventory.

Editor’s note: Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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