Florida to still get nearly 550k COVID vaccines next week despite no Johnson & Johnson

The federal government is holding off sending any more Johnson & Johnson vaccines while it goes through the potential risk of a rare blood clot that was found in six women out of 7 million doses given across the nation, but it’s continuing to queue up increased supplies of both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, including a significant addition headed to Florida.

A jump of nearly 40,000 more initial doses between the two vaccines means the state will receive 549,230 doses the week of April 19, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday. The allotment also calls for an equal number of second doses for both, which require two shots to reach maximum effectiveness against COVID-19. Initial doses are usually delivered from Monday-Wednesday each week.

Not counting the supply in hand of the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the state’s supply will be increasing by 38,160 doses from this week’s allotment of 511,070 between Moderna and Pfizer.

The J&J supply was already limited this week, only 37,000, because of a mixup at a Baltimore manufacturing plant that forced the company to throw out 15 million doses. The state had been given more than 300,000 doses of the J&J vaccine two weeks back.

But on Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Federal Drug Administration announced they were recommending states “pause” administering their supply of J&J while it worked through a risk assessment of the vaccine following the reports of the blood clot incidents, of which at least one was fatal. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis then announced the state would be following the CDC and FDA’s recommendation.

A similar risk was found in the AstraZeneca vaccine that is being used throughout Europe and other countries outside of the U.S. that led authorities to limit its supply to those 50 and older. All of the J&J blood clot incidents occurred in women younger than 50.

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, though, are a different type of vaccine than the similar J&J and AstraZenaca versions, and have not seen any of the blood clot issues.

The Moderna supply for next week will increase to 234,500, up from 217,400 initial doses while the Pfizer supply is increasing to 314,730, up from 293,670.

The largest supply of vaccine to the state came the week of April 5 with a total of 817,250 combining the J&J one-dose vaccine and the initial doses of Pfizer and Moderna.

The state allotment is being augmented by the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program, which delivers directly to Publix, Walmart, Winn-Dixie, CVS and Walgreens locations. In addition, the federal government is the source for the state’s four Federal Emergency Management Agency sites set up for mass-vaccination in Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville and Miami.

Last week, Florida began allowing anyone 18 and older to receive any of the three vaccines, and those 16 and older to get the Pfizer option since that brand has been approved for that younger age group.

The state initially limited vaccines to those 65 and older before lowering it to 60 and up on March 15, 50 and up on March 22 and 40 and up on March 29. The Biden administration announced last week that nationwide the deadline to make all adults eligible for the vaccine has been been moved up to April 19.

Even without a new supply of Johnson & Johnson, the state will be seeing a slight increase from last week’s supply. Last week was the first time there had been a major drop in supply after 10 straight weeks with significant jumps in the state’s allotment. In January, the state was only receiving about 265,000 initial doses a week.

To date, Florida has received or is slated to receive a total of 14,430,500 doses between Pfizer and Moderna in addition to the 696,400 J&J doses. That’s enough to vaccinate 7,911,650 people. The state has a population of 21.5 million.

It has doled them out to hospital systems, county health departments, state-run drive-throughs and the Publix partnership among other options.

Statewide, 7,449,475 people have received at least one vaccination shot including 4,565,915 who have completed their shot regimen, whether it’s the two-dose Pfizer or Moderna option or the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

The count is a snapshot through Monday, based on the report released Tuesday. Of those who have received at least the first dose, 3,523,655 are over the age of 65.

A detailed breakdown of who has been vaccinated so far can be found here.

As far as where the doses of the state allocation of vaccines are going, the state maintains information by county and by vaccine type where it intends to ship its allotment.

For the week of April 11, the state was set to distribute 14,410 doses to Lake County, 29,790 to Orange, 6,680 to Osceola and 13,100 to Seminole. Nearly 7,000 of those doses, though, were the J&J vaccine, all of which were targeted to head to Orange County.

Statewide, Walgreens and CVS pharmacies will each receive 50,310 Pfizer doses and Publix pharmacies will receive 55,000 of the state’s Moderna doses; the retail pharmacy allocations are the same each week. The state’s list does not include doses the federal government will distribute directly through its retail partners including Publix, Walmart, Winn-Dixie and CVS.

The state has yet to announce its distribution plans for the week of April 18.