When will the COVID-19 vaccine be available in Connecticut?

Connecticut health officials believe they will have enough doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for 212,000 health care workers, nursing home residents and first responders by the end of January, and to everyone else who wants it by next fall.

The first doses are expected to arrive in less than two weeks and will initially go to health care workers, nursing home residents and first responders, Gov. Ned Lamont’s office said.

A second tier of distribution will focus on other at-risk groups, including prison inmates, and critical workforce, such as food service workers.

Sometime in the late spring, the vaccine distribution will be open to everyone else who wants it.

The vaccine will be available at no cost, including to people who do not have insurance, health officials have said.

Here’s the most recent timeline of how state health officials plan to distribute the vaccine to Connecticut residents.

Dec. 10: The vaccine candidate developed by the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech will go before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for review for an Emergency Use Authorization, or EUA.

“It’ll probably take 48 to 72 hours to complete that review,” Lamont said Thursday during a news briefing. He noted the timeline is subject to change.

Pfizer’s vaccine must be stored at extremely cold, sub-arctic temperatures of around minus-94 degrees Fahrenheit.

Regulators in the U.K. already approved Pfizer’s vaccine for use.

Like in Connecticut and the rest of the United States, the U.K. has announced plans to distribute its first vaccine doses to health care workers and at nursing homes. However, because the vaccine must be kept at ultra-low temperatures, the first doses will likely go to hospitals there rather than homes, The Guardian reported.

Dec. 14: Connecticut officials expect to receive the first 31,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, according to estimates from the governor’s office.

The actual delivery of the vaccine will be managed by the federal government under Operation Warp Speed, the Trump Administration’s plan to develop and deliver a COVID-19 vaccine, according to acting public health commissioner Deidre Gifford.

Walgreens and CVS will take delivery of doses that will be distributed to nursing homes, while hospitals and “other vaccinators” will receive shipments for health care workers.

“On a weekly basis, we will direct our federal partners where we want those (doses) to be shipped,” said Gifford, who also serves as a co-chair of the governor’s vaccine advisory group.

Dec. 17: A second vaccine candidate developed by Moderna will go before the FDA for EUA review.

Like the Pfizer vaccine, the one developed by Moderna uses messenger RNA to trick the body’s cells into pumping out copies of the “spike protein” on the novel coronavirus.

No vaccines that use mRNA are licensed in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have shown high efficacy rates in clinical trials involving tens of thousands of participants.

Dec. 21: Connecticut officials expect to receive the first doses of Moderna vaccine if granted a EUA from the FDA.

“That’s a bigger shipment,

63,000, assuming we stay on track,” the governor said Thursday

Moderna’s vaccine can also be stored at warmer temperatures than Pfizer’s vaccine, around

minus-4 degrees Fahrenheit — or about the temperature of a home freezer, according to the company.

Jan. 4: Those in the first wave of vaccine distribution, dubbed

“Phase 1A” in the state’s plan, will start to receive their second dose of the vaccine.

Those included in the initial wave include nursing home residents, doctors, nurses and first responders like police and firefighters.

Nursing home workers will be vaccinated along with other health care workers in the first wave, according to Gifford.

The numbers released by Lamont’s office predict around 80 percent of those in these groups will agree to take the vaccine — some 232,000 people, according to the governor’s estimates.

Late January: Sometime between mid- and late-January, the state expects to start vaccinating people in the second tier, dubbed “Phase 1B” under the plan.

Those include adults over the age of 65, those with high medical risks and those who are part of what Lamont called the state’s “critical workforce.”

“These are everything from day care, food service workers, folks taking care of the most disadvantaged in the community, including some of the state employees,” he said. “That includes teachers,” and “people interfacing with the public on a daily basis.”

Also included in that group are people in congregate living settings like group homes, as well as correctional facility inmates.

Jan. 25: By the start of the last full week in January, 380,000 people should receive their first dose and 212,000 should receive their first and second doses, according to estimates released by the governor’s office.

“By Jan. 25, we think the overwhelming majority of those first responders will have had their first and second dose,” Lamont said Thursday.

Late spring 2021: Sometime in the late spring, the state will open up vaccinations for adults who have not received one, as well as those under the age of 18.

“That will not start till later,” Lamont said Thursday, and pointed out it would depend on the “flow” of vaccine.

Summer 2021: By the summer, Gifford said the state will have a better idea whether to consider reducing some of its COVID-19 restrictions, but urged residents to hang onto their masks.

Fall 2021: When life can get back to normal depends on how many people take the vaccine and how effective it is, Gifford said.

“We’re hopeful that by the early fall, we would be able to have everybody who wants to be vaccinated to have received the vaccine — both doses,” she said.

But she also said residents should prepare to live with the virus through “the majority of 2021.”