Administration Of Pfizer Vaccine Expected In Washington By Mid-December

OLYMPIA – The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) continues to make progress with our COVID-19 vaccine distribution planning efforts. First Vaccine Arrival We are hopeful we will have a vaccine to begin administering by mid-December. The federal government has given us an estimate of 62,400 doses of the Pfizer vaccine for our initial allocation. They have also told us we should receive an estimated total of around 200,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine by the end of December.  Regular weekly shipments should begin in January. Vaccine safety is of the utmost importance to our communities in Washington. The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee will meet December 10th to review the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) application submitted by Pfizer on November 20th. An EUA allows the FDA to make a product available during a declared state of emergency before it has a full license. If the EUA is approved, the vaccine will then be vetted by the Scientific Safety Review Workgroup, as part of the Western States Pact. The review by this workgroup will provide another layer of scrutiny and expert review to this process and should take about 1 to 2 days. This will be done while the vaccine is still being processed and shipped, so it should not cause any delay in making vaccine available to people in Washington. WA DOH Press Release, 12/3/2020