Distribution of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to more than 600 locations in all 50 states is set to begin. Gen. Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, said on Saturday that vaccine doses will begin moving from Pfizer’s manufacturing facility on Sunday and arrive at 145 facilities on Monday. These locations are primarily large health-care systems able to handle the vaccines and their storage at ultracold temperatures. Nearly 500 additional facilities will receive doses on Tuesday and Wednesday.
If the Moderna vaccine is approved in December, supply to the states will increase greatly.
Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s initiative to speed development of vaccines and therapeutics, has repeatedly declined to disclose the number of doses the federal government is sending to each state or jurisdiction. The Post is tracking how many doses are expected to be delivered in the first set of Pfizer’s newly authorized vaccine and by end of the year.
According to the official CDC guidance to the states, the first to receive the vaccine are health-care personnel — because of their exposure to the virus and their critical role of keeping the hospitals functioning — and residents and staff of nursing homes, as they account for nearly 40 percent of deaths from covid-19.