COVID-19 vaccine distribution update from the Washington State Department of Health

||| FROM STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH |||

OLYMPIA – The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) continues to make progress with our COVID-19 vaccine distribution and administration efforts.

As of Feb. 22, more than 1,411,453 doses of vaccine have been given across the state, which is more than 75% of the 1,821,705 doses that have been delivered to our providers and long-term care programs. Washington is currently averaging 25,346 vaccine doses given each day. We hit a new record Feb. 11, administering 44,872 doses in a single day, which is extremely close to our goal of vaccinating 45,000 people per day. This information can be found on the DOH data dashboard under the vaccines tab, which is updated three times per week.

Vaccine shipment update

Nearly all the vaccine allocated to Washington has been shipped following last week’s shipment delays due to winter storms across the nation. Our partners are doing great work to quickly and efficiently administer vaccine. Tuesday, our state-led mass vaccination sites set a record administering 5,000 doses of vaccine in a single day.

Allocation increase

Washington’s 3-week allocation forecast from the federal government continues to increase. This information allows us to develop a multi-week strategy that helps with consistency and predictability. The forecast is subject to change as vaccine availability from the federal government may change.

• Week of February 28: 279,800 total doses (156,640 first doses, 123,160 second doses)
• Week of March 7: 285,200 total doses (156,640 first doses, 128,560 second doses)
• Week of March 14: 313,280 total doses (156,640 first doses, 156,640 second doses)

A third vaccine will be coming to Washington in March if the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) grants Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Johnson & Johnson – Janssen COVID-19 vaccine. The FDA independent advisory committee will meet Friday to review the EUA application. If the EUA is granted, the vaccine will be further vetted by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and the Scientific Safety Review Workgroup as part of the Western States Pact. The Scientific Safety Review Workgroup includes experts appointed by Washington state, other member states, and nationally recognized scientists with expertise in infectious diseases, immunization, and public health. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine only requires one dose, which will help people get protected against COVID-19 without having to worry about finding or scheduling an appointment for a second dose. If granted authorization, Washington will likely be allocated 60,900 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine next week.

Revised language in Pfizer’s EUA is also providing Washington with more vaccine. This change was made after it was realized certain needle sizes could administer six doses from one vial rather than five. This change went into effect last week. Although the changes will be subtle, the extra dose gives us an opportunity to administer more vaccine, which is good news.

Allocation challenges

Although allocations are trending in the right direction, we still are not receiving enough vaccine to meet demand. This week Washington state providers requested 436,720 doses (268,000 first doses and 168,720 second doses). We received 263,570 doses from the federal government (146,110 first doses and 117,460 second doses).

Demand for vaccine is high. It has always been DOH’s priority to get counties their proportional share of vaccine. Several factors determine allocation, including available vaccine from the federal government, county level pro-rata data, equity, site-specific information, distribution channels, compliance with 95% requirement, and partner input. Due to second dose reallocations, some counties experienced a gap in recent weeks that we are working to resolve. We are confident we can get all counties caught up quickly and know that any vaccine that gets into Washingtonians helps protect everyone.

The DOH website is your source for a healthy dose of information.