MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO / AP) – Minnesota government Tim Walz says it may be early hiccups, but the state is not receiving as much COVID-19 vaccine as promised.
Walz made the comments Friday morning in an interview with WCCO Radio. It’s because multiple governors across the country have expressed concern about the reduction in vaccine allocation.
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According to Walz, state officials were reluctant to release unofficial numbers of expected vaccine doses, which they did release last week. The numbers have indeed changed.
“We have about 40% less,” said Walz.
Walz says the federal government must ensure that the vaccine arrives in every state as promised.
“These may be the early hiccups. I certainly hope that is the case. But it doesn’t encourage me when Pfizer says it has vaccines in a warehouse, ”said Walz. ‘They have to get out. We are ready.”
The first vaccine doses were administered in the state earlier this week.
Several states were told by the federal government this week that they will receive a smaller second-week supply of the vaccine, which for Minnesota will now contain 33,150 doses instead of the original forecast of 58,000 doses.
“Those projections, we have been told, can change quickly, and so we want the public to recognize that when things change, it’s not unexpected,” said infectious diseases director, Kris Ehresmann, in a briefing Friday. “This is just an incredibly fast-moving situation.”
Two senior Trump administration officials told The Associated Press on Thursday that misunderstandings about changes in vaccine supply and distribution schedule may have contributed to the fluctuating dispatch numbers. The first figures were projections based on information from manufacturers. Staggered delivery schedules of weekly shipments over several days at the request of the governors to make distribution easier may have led to confusion about the number of total doses received, officials said.
Officials at federal Operation Warp Speed said Pfizer had made 6.4 million doses of the vaccine available and 2.9 million doses were expected to be distributed in the first week of approval. A further 2.9 million should be retained as the second dose for first dose recipients to ensure the full effectiveness of the vaccine, with the remaining 500,000 reserved as emergency doses in case of problems.
Pfizer has said the company has not had any manufacturing problems.
Minnesota is expected to receive the remainder of its full first week shipment of 46,800 by the end of the day on Friday. Ehresmann said 947 health workers across the state have been vaccinated as of Friday afternoon and that the state will have access to 94,900 doses of the Moderna vaccine upon its approval, which is expected soon.
Minnesota health officials reported 2,737 newly confirmed coronavirus cases and 65 deaths on Friday, bringing the state’s total to 391,889 cases and 4,723 deaths since the pandemic began.
The seven-day moving average of daily new cases in Minnesota dropped over the past two weeks, going from 6,331.86 new cases per day on Dec. 3 to 3,136.14 new cases per day on Dec. 17, according to The COVID Tracking Project. The number of new day-to-day cases has also declined in recent weeks after an explosive growth in the number of cases at the end of last month.
Meanwhile, several Minnesota restaurants and bars are defying Governor Tim Walz’s executive branch, barring back office sales at those establishments to help reduce community transmission of COVID-19. The companies – some of which are being sued by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison for disobeying the injunction – are facing a 60-day suspension of their liquor licenses and thousands of dollars in fines.
Minnesota Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said that while the number of cases is declining statewide, it is premature to allow inside work in settings known to contribute to the spread of the community.
“We also know that we have to go through two solid weeks of this kind of decline to make sure this is really a valid decrease and not an artifact of numbers coming in slowly,” Malcolm told reporters. “We may sound extraordinarily cautious, but I think that’s because experience has taught us that it’s wise to really look at this data over a period of time and think about where that tipping point seems to be.”
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All rights reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)