97K Coronavirus Vaccines Arriving In PA This Week

HARRISBURG, PA — Pennsylvania will receive nearly 100,000 doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine this week, state officials said Monday.

Health Secretary Rachel Levine said Pennsylvania is expected to receive 97,500 doses this week, which will be distributed at 83 hospitals throughout the state. Another shipment of the Pfizer vaccine is expected next week, but exact amounts are not yet known, Levine said. That's in addition to the more than 13,000 doses Philadelphia will receive through its own vaccination plan.

The first deliveries of the vaccine have already arrived in some places, including at the UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh in Lawrenceville.

But Levine said it will be several months before enough of the vaccine is available to the general public. She said it "might be spring into summer" before everyone in Pennsylvania who wants a vaccine can get it. She reminded residents of the importance of continuing with the public mitigation measures, including wearing a mask and social distancing.

Levine said if the Moderna vaccine is approved in the coming days, Pennsylvania will also be getting shipments of that vaccine as well. It's still too early to know how many doses of the Moderna vaccine Pennsylvania will get when it becomes available, Levine said.

Under Operation Warp Speed, the Department of Defense and other agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are managing the allocation and distribution of the vaccine.

The vaccine will be distributed to Pennsylvanians in three phases. The first phase will focus on reaching health care personnel, emergency medical services first responders and residents and staff of congregate care settings.

In the second phase, a larger number of doses will be available. Efforts will concentrate on first-phase critical populations who were not yet vaccinated as well as the general population.

The third phase will focus on ensuring the entire population has access to the vaccine.

In testimony before Congress last week, Levine detailed the enormity of the task of getting the vaccine to everyone who wants it. In her testimony, Levine emphasized the importance of mitigation efforts and detailed the troubles surrounding the transportation and storage of the coronavirus vaccine.

"The logistics of the vaccine distribution are complicated and the degree of coordination among federal, state, and local levels of government required for this enormous undertaking is unprecedented," Levine said.

"While we, along with public health officials throughout the country, spent countless hours preparing, this mission is fraught with significant challenges that go well beyond just transporting the vaccine from Point A to Point B."

Those challenges include finding sufficient funding to rapidly execute a timely, comprehensive, and equitable vaccination campaign and establishing coordination and communication between federal, state, and local health agencies to distribute the vaccine, Levine said.

With reporting by Eric Heyl