Nebraska's Governor says the state is gearing up ahead of the expected distribution of the first COVID-19 vaccine.
At a Wednesday coronavirus update, Governor Pete Ricketts was joined by Angela Ling, the incident commander for Nebraska’s Department of Health and Human Services, to share details about the state’s COVID-19 vaccination plans.
Pending FDA approval of the vaccines, Nebraska is expecting more than 100,000 COVID-19 vaccinations in the next few weeks, Ling said.
Pfizer’s first shipment of 15,600 vaccinations is expected to arrive the week of December 13th, with 19,500 expected sometime between December 20th-26th, and 23,400 more the week after that. Moderna is planning to ship and 32,100 vaccines to Nebraska the week of December 21st, and 14,200 the following week. Ling said that these were forecasted numbers, which could change.
Ling said the first vaccines will be given to healthcare providers, nurses, ancillary staff, home healthcare, pharmacies, EMS, and other healthcare staff that are exposed to patients and infectious materials. “It’s vitally important that those on the front lines in the fight against the pandemic stay as healthy as possible and that we reduce their chances of spreading the virus."
As more vaccines are allocated, more Nebraskans will receive them, she said. Governor Ricketts says the state’s distribution plans are currently based on the population of Nebraskans ages 18 and older — not on the state’s Census numbers — because the vaccination is not expected to be distributed to children for now.
Ricketts says the state has also increased COVID-19 testing capacity in Omaha and Lincoln.
The number of deaths linked to the coronavirus jumped by 62 Nebraskans on Tuesday as the state reported nearly 2,000 more cases of COVID-19. The state reported 1,787 new virus cases Tuesday to give Nebraska a total of 130,194 cases of the virus since the pandemic began. Nebraska has seen 1,080 deaths from the virus.
The number of people hospitalized with the virus declined again Tuesday to 869 from the previous day’s 907. That total is now more than 100 people lower than the record of 987 that was set on November 20, but it remains nearly four times higher than the level it was at two months ago.