LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada is still waiting for a shipment of COVID-19 vaccines that was supposed to arrive this week but was delayed by winter storms blanketing much of the U.S.
Candice McDaniel, the health bureau chief of Nevada’s Bureau of Child, Family and Community Wellness, said Friday that the majority of the Moderna doses expected to come this week had still not arrived as of Friday morning.
She said the state has been in close contact with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to get updates on the shipment but said they’re “in a holding pattern.”
She did not have details about where in the country the doses were Friday or when they would arrive.
The Southern Nevada Health District said earlier this week that because of the delayed vaccines, it would be postponing about 4,000 appointments for second doses expected to occur this week and instead rescheduling them for next week.
First-dose appointments scheduled for this week were not affected, nor were appointments involving the Pfizer vaccine.
The state has reported a downward trend of known cases, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 since mid-January. The state’s two-week positivity rate dropped to 10.7% on Friday - half of what it was on Jan. 15.
State health officials on Friday reported 420 new confirmed COVID-19 cases and 26 deaths.
The state has seen 290,300 known cases of coronavirus and 4,831 deaths since the pandemic began.
The number of infections is thought to be far higher than reported because many people have not been tested, and studies suggest people can be infected with the virus without feeling sick.
McDaniel said more than half a million people have now received a first dose or both doses of a vaccine.
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