SALT LAKE CITY – More than 20,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered by health officials in Utah on Tuesday – just 20% of the amount of the vaccine shipped to the state.
“There is a lot involved in actually getting a vaccine,” said Jenny Johnson, spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Health. “It’s not surprising to us that people see a number shipped to Utah and they think that means we should get 100,000 people vaccinated as soon as we get the vaccine. And that’s just not how it works.”
Figures released Tuesday showed that since the start of the rollout, Pfizer and Moderna had shipped a total of 102,025 doses of the vaccine to Utah, and 20,417 of those doses have been given to health professionals and others included in Phase 1 of the distribution plan of the state.
“People just need to know that there is a delay in time from when it is shipped to when it goes into someone’s arm,” Johnson said. “But we are administering vaccines to people.”
Johnson said that when the state reports the number of doses “sent”, it does not necessarily mean they are already in the state. The time difference between doses sent to doses administered is up to seven days, she said. There is also a 24-hour window to report that the vaccine has been administered, adding to the delay in the reported numbers.
People just need to know that there is a delay in time from when it is sent to when it goes into someone’s arm.
–Jenny Johnson, Utah Department of Health
Hospitals are instructed not to administer the vaccine to all staff members at once, “because if they have certain side effects that make them want to be at home and rest, you don’t have staff who can’t work.” Johnson also stressed that the vaccine isn’t the only thing hospitals are dealing with.
“These are the same places that have been dealing with this attack of COVID-19 patients,” she said. “And they are tired.”
Still, 20% of the vaccine administered is low compared to what other states reported in a recent New York Times article. It showed that the neighboring state of Colorado had already administered more than 75% of their vaccine and Wyoming had already delivered nearly 50%.
“I can’t say why some states have administered more vaccine than Utah,” Johnson said.
But Utah is doing better than the national average. On Tuesday, the CDC reported that 2.1 million doses had been administered out of the 11.4 million scattered across the country. That equates to about 18%.
Johnson said the recent COVID-19 emergency bill signed by the president this week will aid in the distribution of vaccines.
“We need that Cares Act funding to continue our response efforts,” she said.
Local health departments in the state have also stocked up on some of the vaccine to prepare for clinics that Johnson said will begin this week. Johnson expects these clinics, coupled with the distribution now taking place in long-term care settings, will help close the gap between sent and administered vaccines.