12-23 COVID-19 MDH Update: Moderna Vaccine Shipment Delayed

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) will held a conference call on Wednesday, Dec. 23 to brief members of the media on the latest public health information regarding COVID-19. This is a summary of that conference call. 

MDH Commissioner Jan Malcolm

• In the U.S., 194,000 more cases and 3,383 more deaths
• In MN, 1,513 new cases of COVID on yesterday’s test volume of 23,563 
• 402,519 cases in MN since the pandemic started 
• 1,073 Minnesotans in the hospital with COVID-19, 238 are in the ICU
• 75 new deaths reported in MN
• 4,971 deaths in MN since the start of the pandemic (sadly, it’s likely we will cross the threshold of 5,000 deaths tomorrow).
• We thank everyone for the sacrifices they’ve made during the pandemic. The measures we put in place in November to limit the spread of disease and bring the trajectory of this pandemic down, has had some positive effects.
• We expect that vaccinations will help drive these numbers down even further, but we have to keep making sacrifices as more vaccine becomes available over the next several months.
• The actions that we’re all taking now will help us to prevent the loss of more people, or people suffering serious health consequences that we know this virus can cause. The things that we’re doing to bring down these numbers have very real consequences in people’s lives.
• We continue to urge Minnesotans to be cautious with gatherings 
• It’s helpful to be mindful of social distancing and mask wearing any time you’re together with another household 
• Consider virtual gatherings as a way to stay connected with the people that you love. It’s a way to stay safe.
• If we take these precautionary measures serious, we will get things back to normal sooner 

MDH Infectious Disease Director Kris Ehresmann

• MDH has added new COVID-19 vaccination data on its website.
• MDH has added a page for vaccine distribution data, and a page for vaccine administration data.
• Distribution and administration data will be updated weekly on Wednesdays, and the frequency of updates (particularly for administration data), may change as more vaccines are given. 
• MDH gets weekly allotments, so that will be less likely to change.
• For vaccine distribution data, the data reflects doses allocated to registered providers in Minnesota. Vaccine is sent to the hub, and then may be redistributed to other sites. Some of these doses are arriving at their final destination this week.
• The doses administered data represents all the doses administered to Minnesotans and reported to the Minnesota Immunization Information Connection (MICC). 
• Registered providers receiving COVID-19 vaccine are required to report to MICC within 24 hours when they administer vaccinations. 
• Organizations that receive federal allocations do not have to report vaccinations to MICC, but they submit their data directly to the federal government. 
• There are some sites who get vaccine from other allocations who may still report their doses administered to MICC, so we are including all the doses reported to MICC in our administration data. Because of this, there may be some differences between the vaccine administration data and vaccine distribution data. It’s not exactly a one-to-one match.
• There is a delay in reporting. While we have a lot of vaccine allocated to Minnesota, as can be seen with the distribution data, you’ll see that the administration data seems lower. That’s because actually receiving, preparing and administering vaccine takes time. It takes time for the vaccine to get into the state. For example, with the Pfizer vaccine, we didn’t receive all of our allocated doses until last Friday. And then some of those doses had to get redistributed to the other sites.
• Even once the vaccine arrives at its final destination, there are processes that the sites need to follow in order to get things ready before getting vaccine. Additionally, it can take a day or so before all of those doses get reported to MICC. All of that contributes to a bit of a lag. That’s why the website shows 2,999 doses administered today. That reflects the most complete and final data to report this week. However, more doses are being administered every day in the state, and we have preliminary data that 11,578 doses have been administered as of yesterday. We had to include what was fully complete and final on the web for our posting, but vaccination continues to happen across the state. 
• We know it’s tough that there is not enough vaccine for everyone who wants it at this point. We have the priority 1A groups as recommended at the federal level. Those are the health care workers and long term care residents.
• And because of the limited vaccine supply that we knew we would be facing in these early weeks, we had to further sub-prioritize that first priority group because even within that, we knew we wouldn’t have enough vaccine for all health care workers and long-term care residents right away.
• So we have three tiers within this highest priority group: Tier 1 is focused on providers who are at higher risk, such as those who directly care for COVID-19 patients.
• Community clinics are important partners. The scarcity of vaccine at this earliest stage means the demand far exceeds the supply. Even for most at-risk areas.
• Community clinics have an important role in delivering care to Minnesota’s under-served population. Their workers will be among the first to receive access to the vaccine in this Phase 1A. We’ve prioritized them for enrollment as providers. They were invited to complete the provider agreement before other primary care clinics. And 14 of 17 have done so already. 
• The MN Vaccine Allocation Advisory group determined that staff in clinic settings would come after other health care staff in acute and long-term care. And so staff in community clinics would be vaccinated with those other clinic staff. However, COVID testers that are in priority group 1 are those that are involved in testing centers that do high numbers of tests, oftentimes in uncontrolled environments who are going out in the community to do testing. 
• So inasmuch as the community clinic has staff doing that work, then they would be in Phase 1A Tier 1, otherwise they would be in Tier 3, just like other outpatient clinics.
• We’ve heard that the national distributor from Moderna has told us they are behind on shipping vaccine.
• We’ve been made aware that there are four providers in Minnesota that will have their shipments delayed. Obviously the impending weather that we’re experiencing right now is further complicating those shipment plans. But there are four providers, three local public health agencies and one skilled nursing facility. So we’re continuing to monitor the situation and keep those providers updated.  
• We certainly are always concerned when there are logistical challenges at the national level, and so we’ll continue to keep you updated on that.
• We have a strong plan in place to vaccinate Minnesotans, to help end the pandemic as quickly as possible, and our goal is to make sure that everyone who wants to be vaccinated has access to the vaccine so that we can reduce mortality, long term problems and health inequities.
• But we can only be successful when we have vaccine in the state, so we’ll continue to update you on that situation.
• Vaccine safety — these vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) have gone through the same rigorous safety expectations that any other vaccine has gone through. They also will have the same post-approval monitoring, meaning that we will continue to monitor their safety, even after they’ve been approved by the FDA.
• One thing that will contribute to that is a program CDC developed called “V-Safe.” It’s a reporting tool that uses smartphones for active monitoring for COVID-19 vaccine safety.
• V-Safe is something that you can download to your phone. It uses text messaging and web surveys to check in with people who have received the COVID-19 vaccine.
• Participants of V-Safe can report side-effects and health impacts following vaccinations. It can also remind people when they need to get the second dose of the vaccine.
• So people who are getting their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine (health care providers who are receiving it now), should be receiving information about V-Safe. 
• You can find out more info on CDC’s website. We encourage people to download this app and use it after they receive the vaccine. 

Additional notes from the meeting:

• The decline in case numbers is significant and welcome, but we’re still at a high number with cases, relatively speaking. We’re in better shape than a month ago, but there’s still a lot of virus circulating in the community. 
• Mortality rates aren’t falling at the same rate as deaths. Hospitalizations and deaths are lagging indicators. As cases increase, we don’t see the resulting hospitalization and death increase from a number of weeks. People don’t become critically ill and die right when they test positive for COVID. We had a December with the highest death count due to the high case count in November. As we move into January, we hope we have the benefit of seeing deaths decrease as well. 
• MDH is working with providers who were supposed to receive the delayed Moderna vaccine
• The Pfizer vaccine has to be stored at -70 degrees and can only be shipped in cases of 925 doses
• 11,500 health care workers have been vaccinated so far in Minnesota 
• MDH expects vaccination in skilled nursing facilities to begin next week 
• MDH says that with test sites being closed over the holidays, it shouldn’t be a problem for evaluating the overall situation.

Brooklyn Center | Brooklyn Park | Champlin | Crystal | Golden Valley | Maple Grove | New Hope | Osseo | Plymouth | Robbinsdale | Rogers | Twin Cities | Wayzata