Hogan aims to improve COVID-19 vaccine rollout
Gov. Larry Hogan speaks at a news conference on Tuesday evening (Screenshot)
@BryanRenbaum
The state is taking action to improve the reporting and rollout of Maryland’s allotment of coronavirus vaccines, Gov. Larry Hogan said Tuesday evening.
“Today I am issuing an executive order which requires all providers in the state of Maryland to report data onto our system Immunet within 24 hours after vaccines are administered. And we will be posting this data publicly and will use it to track the progress of every single provider in the state,” Hogan said at a news conference at the State House in Annapolis.
“The Maryland Department of Health is also issuing an order today which states that any facility which has not administered at least 75% of their total first dose allocation may have their future allocations reduced until they can prove their ability to meet capacity requirements. Any provider that has excess doses will be required to notify their local health department so that those doses can be reallocated to other priority populations.”
Hogan said that the pharmacies CVS and Walgreens, both of which have a contract with the federal government to distribute the vaccine in all of Maryland’s nursing homes, have received 61,425 doses from the state but have only reported the use of 8,503 (13.8%) doses.
Hogan said that today he spoke with CEOs of both companies. Hogan said the CEO of CVS conveyed that the company has distributed nearly twice as many vaccines as have been reported and that they are working to improve data sharing with the state. Hogan said the CEO of Walgreens conveyed that the company has set up vaccine clinics all at the nursing homes in Maryland that they are charged with servicing.
At Tuesday’s news conference Hogan announced a series of updates regarding the stages of vaccine rollout. The state is currently in Stage 1A of distribution which prioritizes nursing home residents and staff, hospital staff, and first responders.
The updates are as follows:
Phase 1B: Will be expanded to include all Marylanders over age 75 as well as “special needs group homes, high-risk inmates, developmentally disabled populations, continuity of government vaccinations” and educators. The new plan adds about 860,000 people and is expected to begin at the end of January.
Phase 1C: Will be expanded to include all Marylanders between ages 65-74, grocery store employees, public transit employees, and those who work in agriculture and manufacturing. This would add about 272,000 people and is expected to begin in March.
There are 289,758 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Maryland as of Tuesday morning, according to the Department of Health, and 5,913 people in Maryland have died from the virus. The state’s positivity rate is at 9.19%, which is well above CDC recommended guidelines for containment. Maryland has conducted nearly 5.9 million COVID-19 tests.
On Monday almost 178,000 new cases of COVID-19 were reported nationwide.
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