100,000 education staffers vaccinated

The Wolf administration touted the vaccination of 100,000 education and child care employees in Pennsylvania over two weeks through a program coordinated with the Legislature’s COVID-19 vaccine task force.

The program sequestered the state’s allocation of the Johnson & Johnson one-shot vaccine so that none of the Pfizer or Moderna doses would be diverted from meeting the needs of the 4 million people in Pennsylvania’s 1A group.

A recent media briefing from the Health Department noted that future deliveries of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be dedicated to mass vaccination sites and efforts to help reduce health inequities by targeting underserved groups.

The U.S Centers for Disease Control & Prevention is expected to publish next week’s allotments of each of the three vaccines before the end of day Tuesday. The initial tranche of 94,000 Johnson & Johnson doses was followed two weeks later by an additional 13,000 doses for each of the last two weeks.

Health Department data updated Monday show that 300,690 first doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines arrived at 258 providers excluding Philadelphia, including 38 providers in the eight-county region that includes the Lehigh Valley.

Data aggregated from Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, which is administered separately under the CDC’s vaccine program, show that more than 5 million vaccinations have been administered to 3.3 million people in all 67 counties. More than 31% of the 16-and-over population in the state has been at least partially immunized against COVID-19, with 1.6 million, or 14.8%, having received their first dose, and another 1.7 million, or 16.6%, now fully immunized either through two doses or a single shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Better than one-third of the

Lehigh Valley’s eligible population has received a shot in the arm, with 81,506 people — 15% of those eligible — partially immunized, and an additional 101,588 people — 18.5% of those eligible — fully immunized. Close to 285,000 vaccinations have been administered locally.

The rate of daily vaccinations has been rising since the first doses arrived Dec. 14. The state averaged 113,766 shots per day for the week ending last Friday. The number includes first and second doses.

The single busiest day so far was March 12, when 129,062 syringes were emptied into arms statewide. The number excludes vaccines administered in longterm care facility clinics organized by the CDC, and those administered at federal facilities.

The vaccinations can’t come fast enough, as the rate of additional cases continues to increase.

The state Department of Health reported 3,515 additional coronavirus cases Tuesday. The seven-day moving average of newly reported cases was 3,033, up 21% from 2,512 a week ago. The rate is up more than 14% in the last 30 days.

To date, there have been 991,950 infections statewide since the start of the pandemic.

The state reported 39 deaths Tuesday. The seven-day moving average of deaths per day is 25, compared with 37 a week ago.

There were 1,631 people hospitalized as of midday Tuesday, compared with 1,577 Monday. Of those, 185 were on ventilators, and 341 were in ICU beds. The 14-day average of COVID hospitalizations had been generally declining since the start of the year, but the decline slowed over the last week, and has been increasing for three days. It was 1,508 average daily patients Tuesday, down from its peak of 6,106 on Dec. 25.

The Lehigh Valley’s hospital systems reported 137 COVID19 patients Tuesday, up from 133 Monday, including 27 intensive care patients, 13 of whom were on ventialtors.

The Lehigh Valley reported 352 additional cases, 157 in Lehigh County and 195 in Northampton County. That brings the total to 61,978.

Three new deaths (one in Lehigh County, and two in Northampton County) bring the total to 1,471, (800 in Lehigh, and 671 in Northampton).

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