Pennsylvania's vaccine allocation could increase slightly by next week

Pennsylvania’s vaccine allocation is expected to increase in the next week, a Department of Health spokeswoman said Friday.

President Joe Biden said this week that his administration is working to buy another 200 million doses of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, and announced steps to increase the allocations going to states and local governments.

April Hutcheson, health department spokeswoman, said Pennsylvania has been receiving around 140,000 doses a week. Allocation will soon increase to 160,000. This includes doses that go to long-term care homes, she said. About 64% of the Pfizer-BioNTech doses are used for these facilities.

The 160,000 figure refers only to first doses, she said. It does not include the second doses simultaneously arriving for people who have been partially vaccinated.

While the increase is welcome and the state continues to ask for its full allotment, Hutcheson noted that it is still not enough to meet the needs of all who are eligible in Pennsylvania.

“We’ve also received requests for more than 700,000 doses of vaccine from our vaccine providers,” she said. “We know that we have a very high demand and not enough of a supply.”

Hutcheson said the Department of Health coordinates with providers, understanding their storage capabilities, how much vaccine they request and how much they’ve already administered, and considers population, percent positivity and other metrics in the area to determine how to allocate doses from there.

The vaccine rollout in the region has been fraught with confusion and inconsistencies, with reports of health care workers and many others in priority groups having difficulty making vaccine appointments and obtaining their first dose. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have called for greater transparency and communication in the process, and many have suggested a centralized system to eliminate confusion.

“Pennsylvanians deserve clear and direct communication from our government about when they will be able to receive a vaccine and assurance that this procedure is being carried out fairly and equitably,” state Sen. Lindsey Williams, D-West View, said in a statement last week. Williams called for a central sign-up site and notification system to let people know when they could get a vaccine.

But Hutcheson said many states are experiencing the same lags due to vaccine supply problems – including those that are using more centralized systems.

“Either you’ve registered on a centralized registration system and your appointment is in June, or you’re decentralized and you can’t find an appointment right now,” she said.

Hutcheson noted that the development of single-dose vaccines — like the Johnson & Johnson vaccine awaiting emergency use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — will be a “game changer.”

In the meantime, Pennsylvania providers have received more than 1.8 million doses of vaccine — composed of 930,150 first doses and 884,700 second doses. More than 173,000 people in the commonwealth have been fully vaccinated, and nearly 720,000 have received their first dose.