SALT LAKE CITY – Utah is expected to receive about 32,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine each week to close 2020 after “poor communication” between the federal government and states receiving vaccine doses, according to a department spokesman of state health.
The state has already received 25,000 doses, according to an update from the Utah Department of Health Monday. The new weekly estimate means Utah will likely not reach the 154,000 doses of vaccine it had originally planned for the end of December.
Utah was one of the states that reported late last week that it did not receive as many doses of vaccine as it had estimated the first week after federal regulators approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Army General Gustave Perna apologized for the gaffe over the weekend and called the original vaccine distribution estimate “poor communication,” the Associated Press reported.
“I’m the one who approved the forecast sheets. I’m the one who approved the assignments,” Perna said during a phone session with reporters, according to the AP. “There is no problem with the process. There is no problem with the Pfizer vaccine. There is no problem with the Modern vaccine.”
It now appears that the snafu distribution altered the number of vaccines Utah will receive by the end of the year, although the Modern vaccine has reached the state. A health department spokesman told KSL.com on Tuesday that Utah officials now expect 16,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and another 16,000 doses of the Modern vaccine each week. If this estimate is maintained, it would indicate less than 100,000 doses distributed in Utah by the end of the year.
It is not yet clear how the adjusted figures will affect the timelines for when access to the vaccine will be given to certain groups, such as long-term care center residents or teachers.
Where are the vaccines going?
It’s been a week since Utah health facilities began vaccinating front-line workers. Shortly after this began, the Utah Department of Health began providing statistics on COVID-19 vaccinations in the state.
About 6,520 were already administered in the state, as of Monday’s COVID-19 update. These data may not seem overly exciting, as they only reflect hospital staff at the moment, but they do show that the difference between the top five hospitals in the state that received the vaccine at the next 30 health centers it was far inferior to what was originally thought.
The health department, which estimated in November that the gap could be up to two weeks, reported that some vaccines had been administered in all health districts except San Juan and TriCounty (Daggett, Duchesne counties). and Uintah), during the first week the vaccines arrived. . The first five hospitals covered only three of the 13 districts.
To no one’s surprise, Salt Lake County, the health district with the most employees in health facilities, had administered more vaccines as of Monday afternoon. According to the health department, with 3,698 vaccines administered, it accounts for approximately 57% of all vaccines administered to date.
Understanding of the new COVID-19 strain from the United Kingdom
A recent international history is gaining interest among researchers around the world, including those in Utah.
Health officials in the UK say a new variant of the new coronavirus in the country is spreading faster than the original strain that appears there, indicating a mutation. The strain, known as B.1.1.7, was first documented in September and accounted for about a quarter of all cases in mid-November, Science Magazine reported. It increased to 60% in London early last week, which scientists say could mean the mutation is 70% more transmissible than the previous dominant strain.
As the New York Times noted, Prime Minister Boris Johnson tightened restrictions in London and many parts of south-east London in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus strain. Several European countries also banned travel from the UK as a result of the spread of the mutation.
It is worth noting that experts pointed out quite early in the pandemic that SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, had already mutated into different strains. The most important questions are whether the new strain of the UK is more lethal or will disrupt COVID-19 vaccination efforts, especially if it appears in other parts of the world.
So far, researchers say they don’t think so. In an interview with KSL TV on Monday, Dr. Sankar Swaminathan, head of the infectious disease division at the University of Utah Health, explained that the changes occurred in the peak protein the virus uses to invade human cells. He said there is no evidence to lead experts to believe it is more deadly or that it will frustrate vaccination efforts already underway in the UK.
The vaccine, he noted, helps produce antibodies to different parts of a spike protein. Therefore, when someone is vaccinated, their immune system makes multiple defenses against the peak protein of the coronavirus, even if some parts have mutated.
“While it is possible for the virus to mutate and change its ear protein, it would be very difficult to change it so completely that the vaccine would not yet cause useful antibodies,” Swaminathan said.
Dr Vineet Menachery, a coronavirus expert at the University of Texas Medical Branch, also said the new mutation in the UK is unlikely to disrupt the two COVID-19 vaccines available during an interview with NPR on Monday.
Menachery told the newspaper that it took years of drastic mutations to form a virus before passing a vaccine. It is a potential long-term concern, but it is almost certainly not a short-term problem that would ruin ongoing vaccination efforts.
“The vaccines that have been developed are really generated against – to generate a broad response. So the vaccine uses our immune system to target various parts of the virus,” he said. “And in this case, we may have one or two different parts, but we’re heading for multi-part vaccines. So it’s really hard for a virus to get over it in the short period of time like we are here. speaking “.
Swaminathan added that while the mutation could become the new dominant strain, it should not stop public health officials from administering enough vaccines to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Contributing: Jed Boal, KSL TV
Related stories
Carter Williams