PA Vaccine Timeline: Officials Hope To Have Enough Doses By May

Norristown PA

03 March, 2021

1:19 PM

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PENNSYLVANIA — With more doses of coronavirus vaccines being received each week, possible timelines for inoculating the general public in Pennsylvania are coming into focus. Late spring and early summer are the dates officials keep indicating as their goal, but there is renewed optimism in the days after the single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine received approval and began shipment across the country. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that the United States will have vaccine for all American adults by the end of May. Pennsylvania hopes to be ready to implement those doses, if they are indeed available by then. "We're working on that, we would love to be in line with that," Gov. Tom Wolf said during a news briefing Wednesday. There are plans to roll out state-run mass vaccine clinics as soon as enough doses become available. RELATED: PA Will Vaccinate Teachers With Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Pennsylvania will receive 124,000 doses of the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week. They've also announced two consecutive weeks of the largest shipments yet of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines; a total of 526,280 were allocated this week. Though that's still well short of the millions needed to vaccinate all of 1A, never mind all of Pennsylvania, it marks notable progress. And shipments are expected to continue to grow; nationally, next week's shipments of Moderna and Pfizer are expected to rise from 14.5 million to 15.2 million. Moreover, a total of 4 million Johnson & Johnson doses are expected in the state by the end of March, officials said Wednesday. The company has promised to deliver 100 million doses nationwide by the end of June. Pennsylvania will use these first shipments of Johnson & Johnson to vaccinate its roughly 200,000 teachers and school employees, which they hope to complete by mid-April. As for Biden's end of May goal, it bumps up his previously stated timeline by around two months. In Pennsylvania, officials are optimistic but cautious. "That would be a very hopeful sign," Gov. Wolf said. "But right now, we're not there yet." State Sen. Art Haywood, a member of the bipartisan joint legislative task force on the vaccine, cautioned that even if these doses are available in the state by the end of May, it may still take some time before everyone is vaccinated. "I find that highly unlikely, that it all shows up on day 1, and it's all administered on day two," Haywood said. "So I do believe we've got to look at this from a practical perspective. And that's if we get all of this vaccine by the end of May, it will probably take us through June (to vaccinate everyone)." As of Wednesday, the state has vaccinated 1,720,898 people with a partial first dose, while 762,733 more have received the full two doses. For more information on the COVID-19 vaccination in Pennsylvania, visit Patch's information hub.