Moderna COVID vaccine, coming this week, will help NC reach people in all 100 counties
The arrival of a second COVID-19 vaccine in North Carolina this week should allow at least small numbers of people in all 100 counties to start getting inoculated against the virus.
The state expects to receive 175,900 doses of the Moderna vaccine, which received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration on Friday. Between 70,000 and 80,000 of those will go to local health departments and the 63 hospitals that did not receive any of the Pfizer vaccine last week, said Dr. Mandy Cohen, state secretary of Health and Human Services.
The federal government will distribute the rest to residents and staff at nursing homes and long-term care facilities, through contracts with CVS and Walgreens. CVS said Monday that it will begin administering vaccines in a dozen states this week and expects to start vaccinations in another 36 states, including North Carolina, on Dec. 28.
CVS said it expects to vaccinate people at 899 skilled nursing and assisted living facilities in North Carolina over the next three months.
Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were more than 94% effective in preventing COVID-19 among people who took part in clinical trials. To work, both vaccines need to be administered twice — 21 days apart for Pfizer and 28 days for Moderna.
Difference in vaccines
The Moderna vaccine differs from Pfizer in ways that will help the state begin to reach people in all 100 counties. The Pfizer vaccine comes in allotments of 975 that must be stored at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit, which requires special ultra-cold freezers that even many hospitals don’t have.
But the Moderna vaccine requires standard freezing and refrigeration and can be shipped with as few as 100 doses at a time.
“The Moderna gets packaged much smaller,” Cohen said last week. “So that gives us more flexibility to be able to distribute vaccine to more places.”
Moderna developed the vaccine with the help of Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccine program. The company announced in March that it had received $483 million from the government to accelerate development of the vaccine, then in July said it was accepting another $472 million for late-stage clinical development and trials.
Pfizer did not rely on government funding to develop its vaccine with German partner BioNTech. But in July it agreed to sell 100 million doses of the vaccine, once it was approved, to the government for $1.95 billion and worked with Operation Warp Speed on a distribution plan.
Doses for NC
The head of Operation Warp Speed, Gen. Gustave Perna, apologized over the weekend after the federal government miscalculated how many doses would be shipped to states in the second week.
Many states, including North Carolina, were surprised they would receive fewer doses of the Pfizer vaccine this week than last. After the FDA authorized emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine on Dec. 11, North Carolina received 85,800 doses to distribute to hospitals last week. It has been told to expect 61,425 this week, according to spokeswoman Kelly Haight.
The state’s plan for distributing the vaccine gives top priority to front-line hospital employees who work with and around COVID-19 patients, including doctors and nurses but also translators, transport workers and custodial staff. The number of doses the state will receive the first two weeks will still leave many of these workers unvaccinated, until further shipments arrive.
To help with the distribution of Pfizer vaccine, all 15 research schools within the UNC system will soon receive new freezers capable of storing vaccines at temperatures as low as -112 Fahrenheit. The 32 large freezers and 29 smaller mobile ones will be able hold a total of 1.86 million two-milliliter vials of the vaccine, to be used at hospitals, pharmacies and local health departments.
This story was originally published December 21, 2020 at 9:46 AM with the headline "Moderna COVID vaccine, coming this week, will help NC reach people in all 100 counties."
