Colorado Receives 16,770 Fewer Vaccine Doses Than Expected

DENVER, CO — States, including Colorado, are expecting their latest shipment of Pfizer doses to come up short, public health officials said.

Colorado expects to receive 16,770 fewer doses of the Pfizer vaccine Friday, state public health officials confirmed. The Moderna shipment remains the same.

A federal government representative said on Wednesday that Pfizer faced "manufacturing challenges," but Pfizer said it's not having any production issues, and that no vaccine shipments are on hold or delayed.

"We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions or additional doses," Pfizer said in a statement.

For several weeks, Colorado had been planning for a Friday allocation of 56,550 Pfizer doses. State officials learned this week that the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed leadership decided to change that amount.

A spokesperson with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said state public health officials have misunderstood their estimates.

“There was some confusion between planning and training numbers provided in mid-November and actual official weekly allocations, which are only available the week prior to distribution shipping because they are based on the number of releasable vaccine doses available," the federal agency said in a statement.

"We are working on clearing up any misunderstanding up with the governors and jurisdictions. Operation Warp Speed allocation numbers locked in with states have not been changed or adjusted," the statement read, in part.

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Out of Friday's shipment of 39,780 Pfizer doses, 25,740 will be transferred to the CDC Pharmacy Partnership Program to support onsite vaccination of Colorado’s skilled nursing facilities and 14,040 will be assigned to providers, officials said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been notifying states of the shipment numbers that can be expected for the following week; however, Operation Warp Speed is changing its approach so that states get the same allocation each week. If additional doses become available, Operation Warp Speed said it will distribute those additional doses periodically.

Colorado initially anticipated that with the Pfizer vaccine, providers would be able to administer 5 doses per vial; however, once the first shipment arrived, officials learned from Pfizer that providers could administer up to 6 doses per vial, officials said. That means an anticipated 20 percent increase in doses to the state from Pfizer shipments.

Friday's new shipment number reflects a 6th dose in each vial, so the shipment has come up even shorter than predicted.

"We are anticipating further guidance from the CDC," Colorado officials said Thursday night.