Tennessee to get 90,000 vaccine doses a week
Tennessee expects to receive about 90,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine per week in the near future. And the state government, now confident enough in its supply chain, will “put its foot on the accelerator” of vaccinations through the Christmas weekend, the state’s top health official said Tuesday.
Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey said Tuesday the state was initially “cautious” in its vaccine rollout because it did not have specifics from the federal government about the size and timetable for vaccine shipments. But the state was told Tuesday to expect 50,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine and 40,000 doses of Moderna vaccine per week, starting next week or the first week of January, Piercey said.
“We have initially … not had an aggressive schedule of vaccinating until we really knew what we were going to get, how much of it we were going to receive and how often we were going to get it,” Piercey said. And so we were just sort of pretty cautious about scheduling. Now that we have a better idea, we are putting our foot on the accelerator.”
As of Tuesday morning, the state vaccinated about 24,200 people, mostly or entirely health care workers, with its initial shipment of Pfizer vaccine. Vaccinations of COVID-19 testers and first responders are expected to start this week, including as early as Wednesday in Nashville.
Piercey said the state will begin vaccinating residents and staff of longterm care facilities on Monday.
“We do anticipate that being an incredibly effective tactic in reducing strain on hospitals and reducing mortality because that population is so vulnerable,” Piercey said. “So we are very anxious to get that started.”
While Tennessee intends to speed ahead with vaccinations, Piercey said she was still waiting on one important assurance from the federal government – a guarantee of a second dose.
Piercey said the state still needs to definitively verify the federal government is holding on to enough vaccine to send Tennessee subsequent shipments supplying a second dose of the vaccine to everyone who gets a first dose.
Federal officials have said previously states do no not need to reserve half of their vaccine to provide second dose, Piercey said, but the state wants to confirm this again before it exhausts its current supply of vaccine.
Brett Kelman can be reached at 615259-8287 or at brett.kelman@ tennessean.com.