COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina health officials say they anticipate receiving the state’s first shipments of the COVID-19 vaccine by mid-December but won’t disclose how many doses they will get until the vaccine is in hand.
Stephen White, the state’s immunization director, said at a news briefing Thursday that the Department of Health and Environmental Control is not releasing estimates of how many doses it will receive because those numbers are still fluctuating.
White said the state could expect to have shipments for the vaccine produced by pharmaceutical company Pfizer across its five storage locations statewide by Dec. 14 through Dec. 16, assuming the Pfizer product receives emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. He anticipates more doses from a separate vaccine produced by Moderna in the following week.
Those doses will first go to frontline healthcare workers and nursing home residents, as recommended by federal guidelines for the first phase of distribution, officials said Thursday. But the state’s first shipment likely won’t cover all of its designated recipients.
In those cases, the state Department of Health and Environmental Control will then leave local decision makers to allocate vaccine supplies, said Jane Kelly, assistant state epidemiologist. That can mean decisions like whether an older nurse with diabetes or a younger respiratory therapist with no medical conditions gets vaccinated first, Kelly added.
People with underlying medical conditions that put them at risk catching or dying from COVID-19, older people, and those living in congregate settings like group homes and prisons, could soon follow in the second half of the initial phase, Kelly said.
But until a significant number of people are vaccinated, people should still practice social distancing and wear masks, the health experts said. That’s also because it’s not yet known if the vaccine prevents transmission, meaning it is still possible that someone who gets vaccinated could become infected and be asymptomatic, officials said.
The health department has authorized about 200 providers to administer the vaccine in the state. The agency is also looking into nontraditional sites, such as establishing temporary mass vaccination clinics or making the vaccine available at government clinics in areas with few health providers, to meet demand in rural and underserved areas, officials said.
The state has confirmed more than 200,000 COVID-19 cases since the start of the outbreak. The health department reported 1,754 confirmed cases and 21 additional deaths Thursday; a total of 4,145 South Carolinians with COVID-19 have died.
Over the past two weeks, the rolling average number of daily new cases has remained mostly constant, around 1,418.6 per day, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins.
Still, State Epidemiologist Linda Bell said Thursday that South Carolina, along with the rest of the nation, would likely soon see the consequences from people traveling and gathering for Thanksgiving.
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Follow AP coverage of the pandemic at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.
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Michelle Liu is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
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