MADISON (WKOW) — The state of Wisconsin was one of more than a dozen states to report getting fewer doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine than expected during the first week of distribution.
Army General Gustave Perna said on Saturday he took responsibility for the rocky rollout, calling it a “planning error.”
SSM Health’s Regional VP of Pharmacy, Mo Kharbat, said Sunday he anticipated there could be issues with the initial distribution of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, citing the fact it arrives with storage temperature of -112°F to -76°F according to the CDC.
“The supply chain is very complex for an ultra-cold, frozen product like this,” Kharbat said.
Kharbat said he was optimistic about Sunday’s rollout of the Moderna version of the vaccine. The Moderna vaccine can be stored in regular freezers, which Kharbat said would help both transportation of the vaccine and allow it to reach healthcare workers more directly, arriving at rural hospitals and clinics as opposed to workers needing to visit cities like Madison, which had hubs with special freezers for the Pfizer vaccine.
“Any healthcare workers who either provide direct care or indirect care, who are at risk for infection, are in this definition of a healthcare worker who should get the vaccine first,” Kharbat said.
While healthcare workers and residents of nursing homes remain at the top of the priority list, the CDC on Sunday revised its guidelines for who should get the vaccine next. In its initial guidelines, ‘phase 1b’ included all ‘essential workers’ while adults 65 and older were in ‘phase 1c.’
In the recommendations released Sunday, adults 75 and older were in phase 1b while ‘frontline essential workers’ were in phase 1b; all other essential workers were put in ‘phase 1c.’
“I do believe this reflects on the fact that we do not expect to have enough vaccine doses to vaccinate everyone all at once,” Kharbat said.
Kharbat said SSM Health had yet to begin formulating a process for inoculating people in phases 1b and 1c because its sole focus was on people in phase 1a, starting with its own staff.
He said, last week, SSM Health was able to vaccine more than 2,000 of its staff. The next step would be working to transport the vaccine to rural clinics and hospitals to vaccinate staff there and to nursing homes and assisted living centers, where Kharbat said he expected CVS and Walgreens to begin assisting with on-site vaccinations beginning the week of December 28.
