NC Vaccine Doses Will Be Limited This Week, DHHS Warns

NORTH CAROLINA — After a week of racing to exhaust North Carolina's supply of on-hand first doses of COVID vaccine, state public health officials are bracing for a week of very limited supply made even tighter due to a scheduled mass vaccination event at Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium this weekend.

As of Tuesday, North Carolina healthcare providers had administered more than 810,000 doses of vaccine, which included 95 percent of all the state's first doses of COVID vaccine, in a bid to demonstrate to the federal government it needs to ramp up vaccine shipment to the state, according to the state's top doctor.

"After the federal government put all states on notice that future vaccine allocations would be based on how much supply our state had on hand, we charged our vaccine providers with exhausting North Carolina's supply of first doses," North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen said during a news conference Tuesday.

Of the more than 810,000 doses of COVID vaccine that had been administered in North Carolina Tuesday morning, 630,000 were first doses, of which 260,000 — or about 41 percent — were administered in the past week alone, she said.

That pace is set to throttle down significantly in the days ahead.

"This week is going to feel particularly tight with many providers getting small or no allocations," Cohen said.

DHHS announced Monday that going forward, the state would only receive 120,000 first doses of vaccine from the federal government each week for allocation across the state.

"This coming week, a large number of doses are committed to large-scale events planned several weeks back when we were addressing that backlog in vaccines," she said.

One mass vaccination event is planned this weekend in Charlotte at Bank of America Stadium and is offering free walk-up and drive-thru COVID vaccines by appointment for anyone 65 years old or older. A similar three-day mass vaccination event last weekend at the Charlotte Motor Speedway vaccinated more than 16,000 people.

SEE ALSO: COVID Vaccination Event Set For Bank Of America Stadium: Details

State public health officials have developed a plan aimed at stabilizing the flow of vaccine supply to each county, Cohen said.

Going forward, the state will earmark 84,000 doses sent by the federal government each week that will then be pushed out to every county based upon population, she said. Local providers will also be given a baseline number of doses they can expect for a three-week window in order to help in planning events and clinics. The remaining 36,000 doses in the federal weekly allocation will be used to help balance vaccine distribution throughout the state where needed, Cohen said.

"We will always have supply of second doses on hand that are going to mirror those first dose allocations to insure that everyone gets both shots at the right time," Cohen said. "But those first doses need to be off the shelf and given to people each and every week."

North Carolina reported 3,978 newly confirmed COVID cases in the state, increasing the state's tally of known cases to 727,423 cases, DHHS reported. The state's death toll rose by 56 since Monday, for a total of 8,776 lives lost to the virus since March.

SEE ALSO:

• NC Launches New Web Tool To Determine Vaccine Eligibility
• COVID-19 Cases Connected To Secondary Spread In Iredell Schools
• Charlotte Motor Speedway Event Expected To Vaccinate 16,000