Miami Herald

States thought they would get more vaccine, but Pentagon system had bad numbers

The system had outdated projection­s, which led governors to think they would receive far more doses than will actually arrive soon.

- BY MICHAELWIL­NER

A Pentagon system set up for states to keep track of coronaviru­s vaccines had outdated, inaccurate projection­s for deliveries that misled governors into expecting they would receive far more doses than will arrive in the coming days, a federal official told McClatchy.

The system, called Tiberius, went live months ago in order for state and local officials to prepare for the day when the Food and Drug Administra­tion authorized a coronaviru­s vaccine, with projection­s that were intended to help states practice using the complex system.

But when the FDA issued its first emergency-use authorizat­ion for a vaccine on Dec. 11, the outdated projection­s in the Defense Department software remained in place.

“Tiberius has been online for a couple of months, and it’s where a lot of the exercise and planning modules were where they could see potential allocation­s,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “The problem is that they kept those exercising and planning modules in there, and that’s what people were looking at as late as last week.”

As state government officials went in to order additional doses in recent days — through a

they are added to the ledger.

The day with the most confirmed cases was Dec. 11, when 119 students and 39 staff members were added to the list.

The schools with the highest number of cases are Eugenia B. Thompson K-8 Center (42), John I. Smith K-8 Center (39), John A. Ferguson Senior High (36), TERRA Environmen­tal Research Institute (36) and Coral Reef Senior High (34).

Miami-Dade officials estimate about half of the district’s roughly 255,000 students opted to return to brick-and-mortar schools when schools reopened their classrooms in the fall. The rest continue to learn virtually.

Broward County Public Schools returned to inschool learning on Oct. 9. Since then, 595 students and 578 teachers and staff members, for a total of 1,173 cases, have been confirmed by the Department of Health to have tested positive.

About a quarter of Broward’s public-school students returned to in-person learning since the fall, officials say.

The day the district added the most cases to its dashboard was Dec. 3, when 20 students and 20 staff members were confirmed positive.

The Broward schools with the most cases are Western High (35), Miramar High (28), Cypress Bay High (27), Fort Lauderdale High (24) and Cooper City High (19).

Schools in the Florida Keys allowed in-person learning since the beginning of the academic year in late August.

Since then, the Department of Health confirmed 97 students tested positive for COVID-19 and 40 staff members.

The Monroe County schools with the most cases are Key West High (31), Marathon Middle/ High (18), Horace O’Bryant School (12), Coral Shores High School (10) and Plantation Key School (10).

 ??  ?? Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine
Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine
 ?? JOSE A. IGLESIAS jiglesias@elnuevoher­ald.com ?? First-graders at Redland Elementary in Homestead are led into the classroom by their teacher on Oct. 5, the first day of school reopenings for in-person classes in Miami-Dade.
JOSE A. IGLESIAS jiglesias@elnuevoher­ald.com First-graders at Redland Elementary in Homestead are led into the classroom by their teacher on Oct. 5, the first day of school reopenings for in-person classes in Miami-Dade.

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