Maine’s Initial Share Of Pfizer Vaccine Is ‘far Less Than What Is Needed,’ Janet Mills Says

Maine could initially receive about 12,600 doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, which is a lower quantity than Gov. Janet Mills initially thought the state was going to receive based on previous communications from the federal government. That could allow the state to initially vaccinate some 12,600 people in groups designated as high priority — namely health care workers and nursing home residents — once the shots become available as early as mid-December. However, that is “far less than what is needed for Maine,” Mills said, and the state would then need to receive an additional shipment of 12,600 doses to complete the first round of immunizations, since the Pfizer vaccine requires two different shots a few weeks apart. For now, state officials are hoping to receive that second allotment of doses, but during a news conference Wednesday, Mills and Nirav Shah — director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention — said that the federal government has sent mixed signals about Maine’s initial share of the Pfizer vaccine. Federal officials have said the pharmaceutical company will make 6.4 million doses available as part of a first shipment in mid-December, assuming it has received emergency authorization by then from the FDA. At one point, an online dashboard for the federal government’s vaccine distribution briefly showed Maine’s initial share would be as high as 36,000 doses, but it has since dropped, Shah said. Alex Azar, the U.S.