Hogan Activates National Guard To Distribute Coronavirus Vaccines

ANNAPOLIS, MD — On the same day that Maryland tallied its 5,000th coronavirus-related death, Gov. Larry Hogan offered an update on the state's vaccination progress. He reminded Marylanders that the inoculation is here and that the state continues to ramp up distribution.

To help with the logistics of the mass-immunization effort, Hogan activated the Maryland National Guard on Tuesday. These citizen-soldiers will help transport the shots and run vaccine clinics.

"With vaccine distribution now beginning in our state, we have finally reached a turning point," Hogan said at a Tuesday press conference. "We are able to see the sun rising on the horizon, even if that horizon may seem a little distant right now."

Distributing First Vaccines

Maryland got 155,000 doses of the immunization in its first shipment. A few hospital employees received their shot on Monday, making them the first Marylanders to be vaccinated.

Still, this first shipment will not cover the state's 300,000 medical employees. Hogan hopes to secure an additional 300,000 inoculations by the end of the year.

"It will take many weeks to fully ramp up the full production," Hogan said. "We still have some tough times to go through, but these vaccines offer us real hope that we are approaching the final phase of this global pandemic."

It's going to be a while before the vaccine has widespread circulation. The rollout will happen in four phases: 1A, 1B, 2 and 3.

Medical frontliners will be the first to get the inoculation in stage 1A. First responders and folks in long-term care facilities are also at the top of the list.

This means residents and staff of nursing homes and assisted living centers will be included in the initial wave. Infections tend to spread rapidly in these congregate living spaces. Maryland currently has coronavirus cases at 189 nursing homes and 142 assisted living facilities.

Every hospital and nursing home in the state will get its first disbursement of the vaccine within two weeks. These facilities will give the shots on site.

Maryland partnered with CVS and Walgreens to administer vaccines at nursing homes. Separate immunization clinics will start for first responders within two weeks.

After the 800,000 people in group 1A are vaccinated, the state will enter phase 1B. This allows other high-risk residents to get their shots.

Marylanders with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease or heart conditions can get vaccinated during this period. Adults living in other shared homes are the last residents eligible in this round.

Stage 2 opens the door to employees in critical fields. Marylanders working in education, child care, transit and utilities are among those eligible in the second portion of immunization.

The remaining residents can get the coronavirus inoculation in the third and final phase. For more information on Maryland's plan, click here.

Public Confidence In Vaccine

About 65 percent of Marylanders are very likely or somewhat likely to get the shot when it's available, pollsters estimated. The University of Maryland Medical System calculated that number after it surveyed 525 residents between Nov. 16 and Nov. 23.

That support is up from the month before. Goucher College released a survey in October, suggesting that half the state would refuse the immunization if it were approved that day.

At least 70 percent of the population needs to get vaccinated to sufficiently fight the virus, officials added.

The state will run outreach campaigns with community voices to boost confidence in the inoculation. Hogan said he and Lieutenant Gov. Boyd Rutherford will get the shot in public to show their support for the medicine.

Vaccine Development

Two teams, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, already submitted requests for review of their vaccines. Both brands require two doses.

The Pfizer-BioNTech shots must be separated by three weeks. Moderna's injections have to be four weeks apart.

The Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer-BioNTech's immunization on Friday. The FDA will review Moderna's on Thursday. The agency could clear Moderna's inoculation within days of its briefing.

The governor hopes more companies find vaccine success in the New Year. With more manufacturers, the distribution process may see fewer bottlenecks.

Maryland has about 40 companies working on coronavirus shots, diagnostics and treatments. One such business, Montgomery County's Novavax, recently entered the third and final phase of its inoculation trials.

Korean Coronavirus Tests

Hogan also announced that the state has used all 500,000 of the coronavirus test kits that it bought from a South Korean company in April. The governor said this was an achievement "in spite of numerous false, partisan attacks and a coordinated disinformation campaign."

Maryland paid $9.5 million for those kits, manufactured by LabGenomics. The state had trouble with the tests shipped in the first batch, however.

The instructions did not match those okayed by the FDA, meaning most of those initial tests were unusable, The Washington Post reported. Officials returned the first round of kits and had to pay another $2.5 million to replace them, Maryland Matters noted. The state has since used all of the new and functioning tests.

"The people of Maryland owe a profound debt of gratitude to [LabGenomics] and to the people of South Korea," Hogan said.

The governor also announced that Frederick company CIAN Diagnostics bought 1 million more LabGenomics tests. CIAN Diagnostics will use the kits for its own private testing.

The state had no role in the deal, and Maryland will not use the kits at its state-operated testing sites. Hogan did not specify the purchase price.

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