The four-week vaccine dose projections came in a February 12 bulletin sent to Maryland Department of Health providers of COVID-19 vaccine.
Local health departments in Maryland are taking a long-term view of the number of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine they will receive in the coming weeks – a change that local health officials have long pushed for and which they believe will make it easier. plan and set up vaccination clinics.
The four-week vaccine dose projections came in a February 12 bulletin sent to Maryland Department of Health providers of COVID-19 vaccine.
But even if the projections offer greater visibility of vaccine doses, projections show that the doses that county health departments will receive next month will not increase dramatically anytime soon – even if counties in the DC area continue to face demand overwhelming shots.
The Montgomery County Health Department in Maryland, the state’s most populous county, is projected to receive 4,500 doses of vaccine a week by March 8.
That’s the same number of doses the county health department received last week. However, it is less than the 5,500 received the previous week and only about half the number the county received a month ago.
The number of first weekly doses provided to the county health department has decreased as the state has moved more doses to hospitals and retail pharmacies, such as Giant and Safeway, which is part of the state’s goal of creating a broad infrastructure of “all – the-above “vaccine suppliers spread across the state. Bulletin projections do not include the number of doses sent to other providers in each municipality, only allocations from the health department.
Meanwhile, the Prince George County Health Department, the second most populous county in the state, is expected to receive 4,200 doses a week by March 8, according to the bulletin.
The Baltimore County Department of Health is expected to receive the largest weekly allocation: 4,900 doses.
The Anne Arundel County Department of Health will receive 3,400 weekly doses for the next four weeks; Howard County will receive 1,700 weekly doses; and Charles County will receive 1,100 doses.
(See the full count below)
The projections are based, in part, on dose input data provided by the federal government.
“We reserve the right to make changes based on what the federal administration provides to Maryland,” said the bulletin from Bryan Mroz, assistant secretary of state for the Maryland Department of Health.
Overall, a total of 31,500 doses of vaccine are expected to be sent to local health departments each week, according to projections. That’s about a third of the total doses of COVID-19 vaccines that Maryland receives from the federal government in any given week. The remaining doses are sent to pharmacies and hospitals, but projections do not include these doses.
In a letter last week to the leaders of the Maryland County Association, Maryland interim Health Secretary Dennis Schrader said there were a total of 51 retail pharmacies in Maryland that have partnered with the state to provide vaccines and that each received 200 doses per week, which adds up to another 10,000 doses.
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced the move to warn local health departments about doses in advance during a news conference earlier in the week.
“Until now, state health officials had to wait until Thursday, Friday – sometimes until Saturday night – each week to find out what we could allocate to anyone the following week,” said Hogan during the news conference. February 11th.
Last week, leaders from 22 state jurisdictions wrote to Hogan pushing for more transparency about vaccine distribution and asking the state to share weekly vaccine dose projections with the public and publicize them earlier.
“Providers need more information in advance to plan logistics, and the public deserves to know how many doses each local provider has available,” wrote local authorities in the letter.
In response, Schrader, the acting health secretary, said the Hogan government agreed “that it would be useful for planning purposes to know what lies ahead”, and said that the bottleneck lies with the federal government, which provided only a week of advance in most itself.
The new four-week projections were possible because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agreed to give states a two-week “look to the future”, Schrader said.
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What is the timeline?
News of the number of doses sent to health departments comes as local leaders seek to smooth out an sometimes difficult vaccination process.
In Prince George County, executive Angela Alsobrooks has promised a series of remedies to speed up vaccinations in the county. Although the county is home to the Six Flags mass vaccination clinic, the county has struggled to inoculate its own population.
On Monday, some 47,000 residents received their first vaccines – just about 5% of the county’s population.
In neighboring Montgomery County, which has seen an enormous demand for consultations, more than 106,000 residents received their first vaccines – more than 10% of the population.
Around the DC region, the focus generally remains on vaccinating older and more vulnerable residents.
As for when vaccines will be more widely available to the general public, authorities in Montgomery County, for example, hesitated to provide a timeframe due to the continued low supply.
Last week, Montgomery County executive Marc Elrich said that, given the county’s dose distribution, it could take another 10 weeks to continue vaccinating residents 75 and older.
But a local health department is providing a little more clarity about a possible timeline.
In a February 14 update on its website, Anne Arundel County Health Department has set a vague timetable for the next phase of the vaccine’s launch. According to the website, the Anne Arundel County Health Department expects to start vaccination in Phase 1c from March to April. This includes people aged 65 to 74, immunocompromised patients in hospital treatment, grocery workers and postal workers.
The county’s schedule calls for Phase 2 of the vaccine launch in April or May. This phase includes adults under the age of 65 in high-risk conditions and other types of essential workers such as bricklayers, bank tellers and members of the media.
Phase 3, which includes anyone aged 16 and over, is scheduled to begin in May or June.
Number of weekly doses to be sent to local Maryland health departments during the week of March 8
Population data was researched by WTOP using data from the US Census Bureau and are 2019 estimates
- Allegany County Health Department – 500 doses (population: 70,416)
- Anne Arundel County Department of Health – 3,400 doses (population: 579,234)
- Baltimore City Department of Health – 2,000 doses (population: 593,490)
- Baltimore County Department of Health – 4,900 doses (population: 827,370)
- Calvert County Health Department – 500 doses (population: 92,525)
- Caroline County Department of Health – 300 doses (population: 33,406)
- Carroll County Department of Health – 1,000 doses (population: 168,447)
- Cecil County Department of Health – 900 doses (population: 102,855)
- Charles County Department of Health – 1,100 doses (population: 159,428)
- Dorchester County Health Department – 300 doses (population: 32,138)
- Frederick County Health Department – 1,300 doses (population: 251,422)
- Garrett County Health Department – 300 doses (population: 29,235)
- Harford County Department of Health – 1,400 doses (population: 252,222)
- Howard County Department of Health – 1,700 doses (population: 318,855)
- Kent County Department of Health – 300 doses (population: 19,536)
- Montgomery County Department of Health – 4,500 doses (population: (1,043,530)
- Prince George County Department of Health – 4,200 doses (population: 908,670)
- Queen Anne County Department of Health – 300 doses (population: 49,632)
- Somerset County Health Department – 300 doses (population: 25,616)
- St. Mary County Health Department – 800 doses (population: 113,510)
- Talbot County Health Department – 300 doses (population: 37,167)
- Washington County Department of Health – 500 doses (population: 150,109)
- Wicomico County Health Department – 700 doses (population: 102,539)
- Worcester County Health Department – 300 doses (population: 51,765)
Total weekly doses of vaccine sent to health departments – 31,500