COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s supply of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine will be less in the second full week of delivery than initial estimates, the Department of Health said Friday.
Previous estimates were about 123,000 doses while the current allocation is actually 70,200 doses, said Melanie Amato, a Health Department spokesperson.
The “allocation for the second Pfizer shipment was lower than previously estimated by our federal partners,” Amato said. Ohio received around 98,000 vaccines this week for hospital workers and nursing home residents.
Several other states said this week they have been told to expect far fewer doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in its second week of distribution.
The government has said there is confusion among the states between planning and training numbers provided in mid-November, and actual allocations, which are only provided the week prior to shipment.
Ohio began vaccinating frontline medical workers at 10 hospitals around the state Monday and Tuesday. Vaccinations of nursing home caregivers and residents started Friday at 10 facilities across Ohio.
The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Ohio has risen over the past two weeks from 9,158 new cases per day on Dec. 3 to 9,190 new cases per day on Dec. 17, according to an Associated Press analysis of data provided by The COVID Tracking Project.