State officials anticipate getting COVID-19 vaccine in Delaware next week.
Delaware’s Public Health Director Dr. Karyl Rattay said Tuesday Delaware expects to receive 8,775 doses of an FDA approved Pfizer vaccine next Tuesday the 15th.
She adds about 8,300 doses of Moderna’s vaccine will likely arrive the following week.
She says the state has ramped up efforts to receive and distribute a vaccine from its warehouse, has run tests with the federal government to check the process and recently received a freezer to store the vaccine.
“Which might look just like a basic, but skinny, refrigerator, but it is an ultra-cold freezer so it can store the Pfizer vaccine,” said Rattay. “In fact, it can store almost 300,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine.”
Rattay says the first batch will go to front line medical workers at Delaware hospitals, county first responders and residents of long term care facilities by way of Delaware pharmacies.
She adds a second phase of distribution may come as soon as just a few weeks later, but says who will receive the second batch of vaccine has not been decided.
“[The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] has not finalized phase 1-b and how that group gets sequenced and our ethics group is also having discussions around this,” said Rattay.
Rattay says conversations for distributing the vaccine in later phases are ongoing, but she says essential workers like K-12 educators and poultry workers, as well as vulnerable populations like the elderly and those with underlying health conditions are receiving consideration.
