Thousands of doses of the covid-19 vaccine are expected to arrive in Pennsylvania this week, with more than half reserved for health professionals awaiting their second dose of the two-dose vaccine, Health Secretary Dr Rachel Levine said on Monday. .
To date, 135,044 people across the state have received the vaccine in the first phase. A federal partnership with Walgreens and CVS allowed companies to go to 115 specialized nursing units to vaccinate employees and residents. Levine said the secretariat is awaiting a report indicating exactly how many people were vaccinated in the process.
Levine said 166,725 doses of the Pfizer vaccine are due to arrive this week, of which 97,500 are reserved for healthcare professionals awaiting their second injection. She said 80,000 doses of the Modern vaccine are also expected.
For the time being, vaccines remain reserved for those served in phase “1A” of the state’s vaccination plan – mainly health professionals and long-term employees and residents.
Levine said there is no way of predicting when the state will move to phase “1B”, which includes a series of workers considered essential employees and people over 75.
“Phase 1A started a few weeks ago, and we are just working to increase 1A,” she said. “I can’t say when 1B is going to start. It will depend entirely on how much vaccine we will receive. ”
And that, she said, may vary, as states are at the mercy of Operation Warp Speed with respect to allocations, deadlines and delivery.
“This makes planning challenging (and) it also increases the time it takes to administer the vaccine,” said Levine. She noted that health professionals in charge of administering the vaccine are also taking care of patients.
Commonwealth Media Services
Department of Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine at the virtual media briefing on Monday, January 4.
What is clear, she said, is that it will probably take months before any vaccine is available to the general public, meaning that many mitigation measures will be in place for some time. This includes a notice of stay at home and an order to wear masks when you are away from home or with someone outside your home.
A series of temporary restrictions expired on Monday morning, closing gyms, casinos, entertainment venues and indoor restaurants for three weeks.
Levine said there is no particular case count or reference that the state has an eye on when it comes to raising new mitigation measures.
“We certainly don’t have a specific metric,” she said, noting that an increase in the number of cases may occur after weeks of vacation travel.
Across the state, more than 665,000 covid-19 cases have been reported and more than 16,000 people have died. While the total of new two-day cases seemed low on Monday – 7,805 in 48 hours – it is probably not an accurate representation, said Levine. She pointed to holiday delays and technical maintenance of the state’s reporting system.
“We believe they may be a little higher than normal tomorrow,” she said of the case counts. She said they also suspect that the number of deaths reported in the coming days will increase due to delays in reporting over the holidays.
Locally, the new case count also appeared low on Monday, with Allegheny County reporting 852 new cases in the past two days. Allegheny County Health Department officials, citing the limited availability of tests last week, said the number “probably does not reflect a decrease in the spread of the virus”. Officials said they expected an increase in the number of cases because of people traveling and meeting during the holiday.
In Allegheny County, 56,262 cases of the virus have been reported since the start of the pandemic and 982 people have died.
State health officials reported on Monday that 359 new coronaviruses had been reported in the past two days in Westmoreland County. Since March, more than 20 thousand cases have been diagnosed in the municipality.
Megan Guza is a staff writer for the Tribune-Review. You can contact Megan at 412-380-8519, [email protected] or via Twitter .
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