AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) announced Friday that the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Maine CDC) has placed a third order for COVID-19 vaccine with Operation Warp Speed and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Maine CDC ordered doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for 8,775 people, which is about 40 percent lower than originally planned. Operation Warp Speed informed Maine late Wednesday that the maximum number of Pfizer vaccines available to the state for week 2 of distribution is 8,775 doses, rather than the 13,650 doses previously estimated. According to Maine DHHS, Operation Warp Speed did not provide Maine with an explanation for the reduced numbers.
In recent days, governors and health leaders in at least a dozen states have said the federal government has told them that next week’s shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will be less than originally projected. Little explanation was offered, leaving many state officials perplexed.
In Washington, D.C., two senior Trump administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning said states will receive their full allocations, but misunderstandings about vaccine supply and changes to the delivery schedule may be creating confusion.
One official said the initial numbers of available doses that were provided to states were projections based on information from the manufacturers, not fixed allocations. Some state officials may have misunderstood that, the official said.
The two officials also said that changes the federal government made to the delivery schedule, at the request of governors, may be contributing to a mistaken impression that fewer doses are coming. The key change involves spacing out delivery of states’ weekly allocations over several days to make distribution more manageable.
“They will get their weekly allocation, it just won’t come to them on one day,” one official said.
Pfizer made it clear that as far as production goes, nothing has changed.
“Pfizer has not had any production issues with our COVID-19 vaccine, and no shipments containing the vaccine are on hold or delayed,” spokesman Eamonn Nolan said in an email. “We are continuing to dispatch our orders to the locations specified by the U.S. government."
The company said in a written statement that this week it “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.”
The senior administration officials said Pfizer’s statement about doses awaiting shipping instructions, while technically accurate, conveniently omits the explanation: It was planned that way.
The federal officials said Pfizer committed to provide 6.4 million doses of its vaccine in the first week after approval. But the federal Operation Warp Speed had already planned to distribute only 2.9 million of those doses right away. Another 2.9 million were to be held at Pfizer’s warehouse to guarantee that individuals vaccinated the first week would be able to get their second shot later to make protection fully effective. Finally, the government is holding an additional 500,000 doses as a reserve against unforeseen problems.
Pfizer said it remains confident it can deliver up to 50 million doses globally this year and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021.
The order Maine placed on Friday complements the order for 24,200 Moderna vaccine doses placed on December 11 and the order for 12,675 doses of the Pfizer vaccine placed on December 4. The December 4 order arrived this week and the December 11 order is expected to arrive early next week, if the Moderna vaccine is authorized for emergency use in the next few days.
Altogether, Maine expects to receive enough vaccine for 45,650 people in the first two weeks of the distribution.
Since COVID-19 vaccination began in Maine on Tuesday, 2,264 frontline health care workers have received the first dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
Late Thursday, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee recommended emergency use authorization of the Moderna vaccine. The FDA is now reviewing the advisory committee’s recommendation and is expected to issue its authorization within days.
The last-minute change from Operation Warp Speed to week two of the Pfizer vaccine allocation means Maine will not receive enough of the required minimum of 10,725 doses to fully launch the retail pharmacy program to vaccinate residents and staff of all long-term care facilities in Maine. DHHS will still allocate 3,900 doses in week 2 to continue the skilled nursing facility part of this program, but must delay the program for assisted living facilities and other residential care facilities. Residents and staff of skilled nursing facilities will start to be vaccinated next week, while vaccination at the other long-term care facilities is now expected to begin after the originally planned start date of December 28, 2020. The retail pharmacy program is operated the U.S. CDC and retail pharmacies. Maine DHHS allocates doses to the program but does not play a direct role in distribution of those vaccines to long-term care facilities.
The remaining 4,875 doses of the Pfizer vaccine for week two will go to hospitals. This is an increase from the 2,295 doses originally planned, resulting from the change to the Pfizer allotment. Maine Medical Center, Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center, and MaineGeneral will receive these doses, with some redistribution across hospitals to ensure that critical workers across the state have access to the vaccine.
While recent developments on potential vaccine approval are promising, questions persist about the federal government’s allocation plan and ongoing provision of these lifesaving vaccines. Maine's congressional delegation has asked the Federal government for additional information and greater transparency to help the state plan to vaccinate its residents and contain the pandemic as soon as possible.
Maine's planning for COVID-19 vaccine distribution began in spring 2020, building on the existing network of vaccine providers throughout the state. In October, Maine CDC submitted the first version of its plan to distribute a COVID-19 vaccine. It also has been working with providers to sign up to administer the vaccine. Maine will update the plan as more is learned about vaccine manufacturing, storage, efficacy in different groups, dosing schedules, as well as other factors that will affect the implementation of vaccination on a large scale. The vaccine distribution framework will also evolve with continued input from health care providers and various communities throughout Maine.