Thousands Vaccinated As Doses Arrive At Hospitals Across Illinois

CHICAGO — A day after Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced the federal government had slashed in half the number of Pfizer coronavirus vaccines expected to ship to states in the coming weeks, the manufacturer announced millions of doses are sitting in its warehouses awaiting instructions where to ship them.

Pritzker said about 3,500 health care workers, not including those in Chicago, had been vaccinated as of Thursday morning from Monday's shipment of 43,000 doses, which was first sent to the state's strategic stockpile in Peoria for repackaging.

"Doses were delivered first to our regional hospital coordinating centers and also direct to DuPage County, then on to 45 counties and local health departments, finally arriving at 77 hospitals all across the state," Pritzker said. "I'm pleased to say that all shipments arrived safely and securely at their destinations over the course of the last two days."

Many more health care workers are already scheduled to receive vaccinations by the end of the weekend, Pritzker told reporters Thursday. According to the governor's office, nine regional hospital coordinating centers, or RHCCs, outside of Lake and Cook County have distributed the first allocation of Pfizer vaccines via county health departments, which allocated their share of doses among local hospitals.

"Today, 43,000 additional doses arrived from the federal government at Cook County Department of Public Health, Lake County Health Department and Community Health Center, Madison County Health Department and St. Clair County Health Department," he said. "With these latest shipments, Illinois will have received the entirety of this week's allotment. It is truly exciting to see these health care workers — our heroes on the front lines of the pandemic, who have put themselves at risk every day to save lives — begin to receive their vaccines."

Pritzker said he has not received any word from the federal government as to why the number of doses expected to be shipped out over the next two weeks was cut Wednesday from 17.6 million to 8.4 million.

"They haven't given us any explanation of why those numbers are smaller than before," he said.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said at a news conference Wednesday that New York-based drugmaker Pfizer, which collaborated with the German immunotherapy company BioNTech to produce the first coronavirus vaccine to receive government approval, is facing "various challenges" to its manufacturing process.

Because Pfizer did not receive funding through the federal government's Operation Warp Speed vaccine program, officials had less information about its supply chain than other producers, Azar said.

On Thursday, the vaccine's manufacturer issued a statement in response to public comments suggesting there are issues with the production and distribution of its vaccine. It said the company remained confident it could deliver 50 million doses by the end of the year and up to 1.3 billion in 2021.

"Pfizer is not having any production issues with our COVID-19 vaccine, and no shipments containing the vaccine are on hold or delayed. This week, we successfully shipped all 2.9 million doses that we were asked to ship by the U.S. Government to the locations specified by them. We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses," company representatives said.

"We have continuously shared with Operation Warp Speed (OWS) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through weekly meetings every aspect of our production and distribution capabilities. They have visited our facilities, walked the production lines and been updated on our production planning as information has become available."

Pritzker said he had no idea why the Trump administration would leave millions of doses sitting in warehouses instead of distributing them across the country.

"I don't know what to say about that," he said. "I have not had any direct conversation with the people that control those doses. Our IDPH talks to the federal government every day, and we've not been informed why the federal government is not drawing down those vaccines."