CDC REQUESTS VACCINE PLANS
When available, plans will be shared with other states
Federal health officials are asking four states and one city to draft plans for how they would distribute a coronavirus vaccine when limited doses become available, possibly as early as this fall, officials said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Defense and other agencies began working with officials in California, Florida, Minnesota, North Dakota and Philadelphia this week to develop plans to transport and store vaccine, and prioritize which individuals will get the first doses to protect against COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. The proposals will consider each location’s racial and ethnic makeup, and population density.
Those plans will be shared with other states to help them with vaccine distribution planning. The discussions with states this week offer some of the first details of the federal government’s plans at a time when information shared by the administration has been limited and often confusing. The United States is planning the largest vaccination campaign ever undertaken, requiring extraordinary coordination, planning and communication.
U.S. officials said this week that Operation Warp Speed, the administration’s effort to expedite development of coronavirus countermeasures, is on track to deliver tens of millions of vaccine doses by January.
In the planning discussions, one of the hottest topics involves freezers. At least one vaccine candidate is expected to require storage at very cold temperatures, about minus-94 degrees. A top CDC official told state immunization officials Wednesday that states probably won’t be expected to buy special freezers. But if a vaccine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration that requires such cold storage, states should prepare sites for mass vaccination clinics because doctors’ offices aren’t likely to store and administer those shots. It’s possible that the government would sign contracts with other commercial entities to handle the refrigerated storage, the official said.
On Friday, the Defense and Health and Human Services departments announced that McKesson Corp. will be a central distributor of COVID-19 vaccines and related supplies. The CDC is executing an existing contract option of $178 million with McKesson to support vaccine distribution, an HHS statement said. McKesson also distributed the vaccine during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009-10. McKesson will work under the CDC’s guidance to ship COVID-19 vaccines to sites where shots will be administered, the statement said.
Although President Donald Trump has said repeatedly the military will deliver vaccines, the Defense Department “is not actually going to be distributing or delivering the vaccines itself,” Paul Mango, deputy chief of staff for policy at HHS, told reporters Thursday. The Defense Department will handle the logistics of manufacturing, including acquisition of raw material, establishing factories and training workers.
“With few exceptions, our commercial distribution partners will be responsible for handling all vaccines,” Mango said in an email Thursday. In some cases, the commercial distributors may provide vaccine to private organizations, such as mobile vaccination units that go to nursing homes, he said.
State and federal officials will need to figure out how to transport and store vaccine, how to identify priority groups who will receive the first doses and how to keep track of individuals who may need to have a second dose.
North Dakota officials said they are working with the CDC on ways to reach American Indian populations.