GOVERNOR HOGAN: Good evening. Joining me are Major General Timothy Gowen of the Maryland National Guard and Dr. Jinlene Chan, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health.
We begin 2021 at a critical moment in the war against COVID-19, which continues to pose a serious threat to our state and our nation. While the initial launch of vaccine distributions does offer us a glimmer of hope, we still have a long way to go in this fight. Distributing and administering vaccines throughout 2021 will be, without question, the greatest peacetime undertaking in American history and it will be a massive all-hands-on-deck ongoing operation involving the federal, state, and local governments and private sector.
Over the last nearly 3 weeks, we have already successfully allocated, deployed, and distributed 270,150 doses of vaccines directly into the hands of our front-line vaccinators at nursing homes, hospitals, and Health Departments to begin phase 1A. This represents 98.7 percent of all the doses that the federal government allotted to the state of Maryland. Only 1.3 percent, 3,727 doses, have been retained by the state at the state Health Department for emergency backup reserve purposes..
270,150 doses have already been deployed to every single hospital in Maryland, to all 24 of our local Health Departments across the state, and to CVS and Walgreens, which have a federal contract to handle all of our nursing homes across the state and to support the vaccination of our Maryland front line workers at federal facilities. We distributed them out to healthcare workers for federal facilities and to those who work in facilities in D.C., Marylanders who work in hospitals in the District.
163,225 were sent to every Maryland hospital for critical front line workers. To date, those hospitals have administered 55,941 doses, which is 34.3 percent of the doses which we provided them. Some of our hospitals are doing extremely well, already utilizing as much as 67 percent of their total allocations. While others are still just ramping up. The slowest hospital in the state has completed only 16 percent of their allocation. We have also deployed 35,200 doses to every one of our county Health Departments, and they have begun vaccinating their vaccinators, EMTs and first responders, so that they could, in turn, start up their county vaccination clinics.
Local Health Departments have already administered 11,401 doses, which is 32.4 percent of what we have deployed to them.
Five counties have done a remarkable job and have already completed 80 percent or more of their phase 1A vaccinations. That includes Howard, Montgomery, St. Mary’s, Calvert, and Caroline Counties. Other counties are just beginning to ramp up their operations.
61,425 doses were sent directly to CVS and Walgreens, which have a federal contract to administer vaccines in all 227 of our nursing homes. To date, CVS and Walgreens have entered into our system data showing the completion of 8,503 doses, or just 13.8 percent, which is close to on par with the numbers that they’re doing nationwide, but we’ve been working hard to get to the bottom of all of those provider issues. So I have contacted Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to express our serious concerns about the haste of the federal nursing home program. In addition, I had a long and I would say productive discussion earlier today with both the CEO of CVS, who said they had done nearly twice as many vaccinations in Maryland as are being reported, that they are now working with our team to correct data reporting issues that they had not entered the data into our system yet.
I also spoke with the CEO of Walgreens, who said that they have now scheduled clinics at every single one of the nursing homes they’re responsible for and they’ve been assigned under the federal criteria, the ones that they’ve been assigned. We’re going to continue to stay on top of this. We’re going to be in close contact with CVS and Walgreens to continue monitoring their progress and seeing what we can do to help them continue to ramp up their vaccinations.
Most in the states in America are having very similar issues with those contracts. So we have also reached out to the National Governors Association in an effort to begin some joint dialogues between all of the nations’ governors, our federal partners, and between these pharmacies that are conducting those contracts. While none of us are thrilled with the pace of this roll out over the first couple of weeks, I can assure you that it is improving every day. Our numbers in Maryland are in line with the rest of the nation, and, in fact, we’re ahead of 27 other states.
The good news is that these vaccines have arrived years ahead of schedule, and that they are ramping up much faster than they did when we were back in the spring dealing with testing, back when we led the nation, but it took us almost 9 months to go from 50 tests a day to 50,000. Today alone Maryland reported a record 11,553 new vaccinations, for a cumulative total of 76,916 vaccinations. And I’m pleased to report that second doses have already begun at Maryland hospitals. I want to assure the people of Maryland that we are going to leverage every single resource at our disposal to get more shots into more arms as quickly as we possibly can in a safe and orderly way.
I would like to just take a moment to make sure that Marylanders understand exactly how this vaccine distribution process works. Each week the federal government informs each of the states of their allocation. After that, they open up their ordering system. The federal government has a system called Tiberius. And then states are then able to place our orders directly with them as to where they should ship those doses. And we’re able to then notify our providers, the front-line vaccinators, and then they can immediately begin to have their clinics ready to receive those doses and to begin vaccinating.
So in these early couple weeks, there is a little bit of a lag time. Those orders are shipped out directly to the providers, to those vaccinators, straight from the CDC through operation warp speed. And that process takes about a week, can take as much as a week, but vaccine administration is the responsibility of each of those providers. For example, in phase 1A that we’re in right now, it is the federal contract with CVS and Walgreens that’s responsible for our nursing homes. Maryland hospitals are the ones who are doing their own staffs, and front-line healthcare workers in those hospitals. And our 24 county Health Departments are receiving their doses directly for their own Health Department staffs and their county’s first responders.
All of these providers, I can assure you, have a desire to get these vaccines into the arms of the people who need them as quickly as they possibly can. And no one is attempting to delay. All of us are doing our best to work together at all levels of government and with our private sector partners to get all of our front-line vaccinators whatever resources they need to accelerate the process and to do their jobs as effectively and efficiently as they possibly can.
But today I am announcing some additional steps which we believe will help providers get more shots into more arms quicker in a safe and efficient manner. Last month I reactivated the Maryland National Guard to provide support to state health officials for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccine. Beginning tomorrow, the Guard will begin to dispatch emergency vaccination support teams across the state to assist local Health Departments with the expansion of their vaccination capacity. Each of these emergency teams will include 14 Guard members who will actually assist with the administering of the vaccines and who will also be able to help provide logistical support for vaccination clinics.
Through our Maryland Responds Medical Reserve Corps, which I announced earlier, retired and/or volunteer health workers, we have already identified 700 qualified people who are ready and willing to assist local Health Departments and other clinics with the administering of shots. We’re sharing that with county Health Departments to expand their clinics to 7-day-a-week clinics. Every single resource at our disposal, including additional vaccinators, logistic support, PPE, or whatever we can possibly provide will be provided to help them speed up their pace of vaccinating their workers.
Slow and uneven data reporting has made it extremely difficult to determine where there are issues with vaccine administration. Certain people have said that they’re doing thousands of vaccinations but some hospitals haven’t reported any at all even though they have done quite a bit. We’re trying to fix that. We need to address these reporting lags, particularly some of the hospitals but also with CVS and Walgreens. CVS and Walgreens were given 72 hours to do their reporting under the federal contract, when we’re requiring others to do 24 hours. So I had those discussions with the CEO and President of Walgreens and CVS today, and today I am issuing an executive order that requires all providers in the state of Maryland to report data on to our system, ImmuNet, within 24 hours after vaccines are administered. We will be posting this data publicly and using it to track the progress of every single provider in the state.
The Maryland Department of Health is also issuing an order today which states that any facility which has not administered at least 75 percent 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.
Effective immediately, we will be adopting a new what I’m calling Southwest Airlines model of rolling vaccine allocation model. No doses should be sitting in freezers going unused waiting or backing up while others are in need of more. So we’re going to be adjusting the plan to say that we’re going to no longer be waiting for all members of a particular priority group to be completed before we move on to begin that next group in line. Our message to those who are responsible for doing the vaccinations is clear: Either use the doses that you have been allocated or they will be redirected to another facility or provider, where they will be used immediately.
Every single week we will be continuing to push out vaccines to our hospitals, pharmacies, local Health Departments, and to all the other vaccinators across the state based on need and on utilization. As soon as we move forward from this initial phase 1A, which is an extremely limited supply, we will then be able to scale up to broader vaccination clinics across the state. However, I want to make this point clear. The states are wholly reliant on the federal government and on the two vaccine suppliers, producers, for the supply of vaccines. In the first 3 weeks, we and the other states received 4.4 percent of vaccines for our population. For the foreseeable future, unless there is an increase in production of vaccines from those producers or until new vaccines are approved and made available, we expect to receive about 72,000 doses per week from the federal government, which is roughly 10,000 doses per day. And we’re all hopeful that it will increase from there, and we’ll expect and hope that it will. But right now those are the real numbers that we’re counting on.
Yesterday we already did more than that by vaccinating 11,553 Marylanders in one day, exceeding our daily allotment. So at the current pace of allocation from our federal partners, we would expect to have 1.8 million doses by the end of May, which would represent only 30 percent of our state’s population. So this is going to be a long haul. Dr. Fauci said the other day on television that we could expect to have 60 percent of the national population vaccinated by the fall. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that this week, as I mentioned, we have already begun second doses for some. Not only that, but we have also already expanded our phase 1A populations. Now all licensed, registered, and certified healthcare providers anywhere in the state are eligible for vaccination. Local Health Departments have now begun to make arrangements with providers to get them all vaccinated in the coming days and weeks.
Vaccinations will also soon be under way for all law enforcement agencies, correctional officers, and judiciary staff. But just phase 1A is more than a half million Marylanders. So if you look at that pyramid we have, that little tiny piece at the top, 1A, is a half million people. So I encourage people to be patient. When am I getting it? Why isn’t everybody done? It’s a massive undertaking.
Today, based on the recommendations of the federal advisory committee on immunization practices, which is comprised of public health experts on the use of vaccines, we are announcing updates to our phase 1 of Maryland’s statewide vaccination plan. Our new phase 1B will now include all Marylanders over the age of 75. It will also be expanded to include special needs group homes, high risk inmates, developmentally disabled populations, continuity of government vaccinations, as well as teachers, childcare, and education staff. The Maryland State Department of Education has already begun but they will continue to immediately begin coordination with all of our county school systems to prepare the implementation of their plans to vaccinate this critical personnel.
Overall, this revised phase 1B of our plan now includes approximately 860,000 additional Marylanders.
Based on the current rate of allocation, we anticipate the state being able to move in to phase 1B at the end of January. We have updated our phase 1C to now include all Marylanders aged 65-74 and workers in additional critical sectors, including grocery stores, public transit, agricultural production and manufacturing. Phase 1C now includes an additional 772,000 Marylanders.
Based on the current rate, again, we’re hoping to see that exponentially increase in the weeks and months ahead, but based on the current rate of the allocation we’re receiving from the federal government, we expect to be able to move into phase 1C sometime in March.
Our newly updated phase 2 will now include Marylanders ages 16-64 who are at increased risk of COVID-19 illness due to comorbidities, as well as essential workers in critical utilities and other sectors. So phase 2 will now include another 1.1 million Marylanders. Obviously people have many questions about when they will be eligible. They have many concerns about the safety of the vaccines. And we’re going to continue to try to provide as much information and answer as many questions as possible. But here are some of the ways that you can help to stay informed. First, the state will be issuing regular updates to our statewide texting service. To opt in to receive these alerts, text MdReady to 898-211 so that you can receive updates as soon as new information becomes available.
Second, Marylanders are encouraged to visit covidlink.maryland.gov for all available resources that we have on the state vaccination plan, along with all the safety information regarding the vaccines.
And lastly, we ask everybody to be patient, as this will be a long process. Already we are seeing instances where people are attempting to cut the line and cheat the rules and take appointments away from our front-line healthcare workers. Not only is this reprehensible behavior, but it also slows down the entire process. The more steps that our vaccinators and our providers have to put in place and add to verify the vaccine recipients, the longer that this is going to take for everyone to get their vaccines. So please exercise decency and common sense. While these vaccines do offer us a light at the end of the tunnel and allow us to look ahead to the day the pandemic will no longer disrupt our lives or prevent us from getting back to normal and seeing our loved ones or getting back to work or school, right now we’re still in the thick of this fight. Maryland’s 7-day positivity rate did drop a little bit today to 9.19 percent, but it’s still much higher than we want it to be. Our statewide case rate increased slightly today to 44.0. All 24 of our jurisdictions are still in the red zone for cases according to the federal government. As of today, 1,771 COVID patients are hospitalized in the state. Fortunately this is 8300 beds below what Hopkins had projected for the beginning of January. Better treatments have clearly helped to improve our ability to fight the virus and to keep our hospitalizations stable. As of today the percentage of new cases that lead to hospitalizations has fallen by 72 percent since April. The percentage of new cases that lead to death has fallen by 67 percent since early May. And the percentage of hospitalizations that end in death has fallen by 48 percent since early July.
These are really encouraging numbers. We continue to utilize the alternate care sites opened in the spring. Our critical care coordination center still continues to transfer patients. All of our surge preparations, so we’re still ready to handle any additional surges that may happen.
We are concerned about this much more contagious variant of the virus that originated in the U.K. Now, as of today, with the addition of Georgia, it has been detected in five states and at least 33 countries so far. Our public health laboratory is saying the variant is five times the national rate in the everyday testing but luckily we have not detected a case connected to it yet in Maryland, but this is another reason why we all need to keep being vigilant while we focus on getting these vaccines ramped up and to our front-line healthcare workers and our most vulnerable.
As I have said throughout this entire crisis, we are all in this together, and we will get through this together by staying Maryland Strong.
At this time I’m going to turn it over to General Gowen to address more detail of the support the Guard will be providing to our counties. General?
TIMOTHY GOWEN: Thank you, Governor Hogan, for your leadership throughout this challenging time.
And thanks for an order for every Maryland who has come together and worked tirelessly to combat the spread of COVID-19. As most of you are aware, the Maryland National Guard has a dual mission: Our soldiers and airmen are generally seen deploying overseas to fight America’s wars or putting on uniform here at home to provide aid during a natural disaster. Last March-July, 1500 Maryland National Guard members were activated to combat this pandemic. During that time our troop as sifted with the processing and distribution of more than 59 million pieces of personal protective equipment, and we proudly distributed more than a million meals throughout the state. Our medical support team screened and tested more than 22,000 people, including high risk resident as the 227 skilled nursing facilities.
We all continue to experience immense challenges related to COVID, but the vaccine provides hope, hope of not only slowing this virus, but defeating it.
Over the last several months I’ve assigned some of my best planners to support the Maryland Department of Health to help prepare for this vaccination effort. As the Governor mentioned, starting tomorrow, we will provide direct support to county Health Departments with mobile vaccination support teams with the mission of accelerating vaccination efforts. In Maryland, the National Guard mobile vaccination support team consists of 9-14 medical professionals. Initially we will have close to 200 personnel organized into 14 teams.
Additionally we’re providing manpower to support congregate care in long-term health facilities and additional manpower to support county Health Department testing activities, call assistance, call center assistance, data center analysis, and logistical support. Our military medical specialists are world class professionals who live and work in the communities they serve. These unique capabilities are well suited and integrated when we work alongside our interagency partners and communities. This is an initial capability that we’re fully prepared to execute and will continue to provide the support to the Governor as directed.
I want to thank all the people of this great state for their support and generosity you’ve shown the Maryland National Guard. We are honored to support the great state by serving on the front lines in the communities where we reside and work. We are always there and ready.
Thank you.
Dr. Chan?
JINLENE CHAN: Thank you, General Gowen and Governor Hogan.
I’m glad to be here this evening to make remarks about our vaccine roll out. We’re beginning the new year with hope, as the vaccines have started to roll out in the state as the Governor mentioned.
You know, there’s a lot of work involved in terms of this vaccine roll out, and there are more than 500,000 individuals who are in phase 1A which are comprised of the healthcare workers and the nursing home residents and first responders. Our hospitals have been administering vaccines to their staff members, and again, to some of their community healthcare workers and others.
Our federal partners, CVS and Walgreens, have also been administering vaccines in long-term care facilities and our local Health Departments are ramping up their vaccine efforts at the local level.
As of this week, again, emphasizing that all of the licensed, registered, and certified healthcare workers in the state of Maryland are now eligible for vaccination and distribution to first responders and others, including 911 specialists and correctional officers at the local level and will ramp up in the next few weeks. I’ve been speaking to a number of health officers around the state and talking about their vaccine clinics and about the work that they’ve been doing to stand up those clinics, training staff and others to make sure that vaccines are administered safely and effectively and efficiently. They have all been implementing the plans that have been developed over the course of many years and more specifically over the last few months. Many have started to vaccinate not only their first responders but even other healthcare workers, and they continue to reach out to those populations. And now with appointments, that information will be more available to healthcare workers.
We also want to appreciate of course the National Guard for standing up to support their efforts. Local Health Departments have been working alongside the National Guard and all of our public health and healthcare workers around the state to respond to COVID-19. Testing, contact tracing, and other efforts continue. And now they are standing up a monumental vaccination effort across the state. So it is all hands on deck. So we very much appreciate the support of the Governor as well as the National Guard and others in this effort.
Over the last few weeks we’ve been working very closely with our federal as well as state partners to ensure that vaccines get to facilities in Maryland. As the Governor illustrated, it does take some time from the time that they tell us that we have a vaccine allocation to when we order it, and then when it actually gets delivered here to the state directly to a facility.
And that’s before vaccination even begins. And so over the last few weeks our hospitals and local Health Departments in implementing their plans, there’s a lot that’s been happening behind the scenes, including staff training and education, communications to the eligible groups, coordination with local providers, coordination with local counterparts, fire and EMS, for example.
In addition, they had to set up appointment schedules and make sure that the clinics are set up securely and safely, and also with adequate room to accommodate all of our COVID-19 cautions to avoid crowding in these vaccine clinics. All of this has been happening behind the scenes that perhaps people may not fully appreciate, but this is a lot of logistics and operational work that our local Health Departments, hospitals, and CVS and Walgreens partners have been doing every day for the last few weeks.
So many Marylanders who are currently eligible to get vaccinated, expanded to include all healthcare providers, will be able to get a link to vaccine appointments, including instructions for how to make those appointments, whether it’s at their long-term care facility, within their hospital, or the local Health Department.
Again, I would emphasize that the unauthorized use of these private registration links intended for someone else and directed towards healthcare workers, really if someone uses it in an unauthorized way, it takes us away from our healthcare heroes who are really at the front line of caring for individuals not only with COVID-19 but with so many other conditions. And that is our first priority.
Vaccines will become available to more and more Marylanders, and we are looking forward to advancing into the next phases of our plan as soon as we possibly can, again, dependent on the supply of vaccine that comes to the state.
As we expand into phase 1B populations, and as we receive more vaccine, we also do anticipate expanding the number of providers who will be able to register in our ImmuNet system and to receive vaccines themselves to vaccinate the population. So again, as we expand into 1B, 1C, and beyond, we also will be expanding the number of providers who receive vaccine. So this includes federally qualified healthcare centers, primary care centers, urgent cares, pharmacies, and other location where’s people are accustomed to receiving vaccines.
I wanted to shift gears to another topic the Governor alluded to, the U.K. variant. What I wanted to talk about was that we know that viruses generally will morph. And we’ve seen that even COVID has had some changes genetically over time, but those changes have not really impacted its ability to spread or other characteristics.
However, in this particular instance, what we have seen is that both U.K. and in South Africa I believe have announced that they’ve seen some new variants that may change some of the characteristics of the way that the virus has spread. And as the Governor mentioned, there are some states here in the United States that have already detected the variant here. So it is possible that because of travel, because of other means of spread, that the variant is here in Maryland. But we are staying extremely vigilant. We are working very closely with our CDC partners. And we are conducting the sequencing that is needed to be able to project the potential variant here in Maryland.
While it does appear to spread more easily, we have not seen any evidence that it actually causes more hospitalizations or severe disease or that it increases the risk of death. And that is important to understand.
In addition, I know questions have been raised about whether or not these vaccines that we are rolling out would be effective against this new variant. And right now the answer is that it appears that it will be, but there is more study that’s being done. The vaccines themselves actually protect and create antibiotics against multiple parts of the spike protein, so the change in this particular virus is really only one part of that spike protein that the vaccine is protective against, so we believe that the vaccine will be protective against both this strain and others.
Our public health officials continue to study COVID-19 variants to make sure that we can control their spread, and we ask that Marylanders continue to wear a mask, practice social distancing, and wash their hands, refrain from large gatherings, and other basic public health measures to prevent the spread.
You know, as we roll forward, I know that in discussing our new 1A and 1B prioritization groups, other states have been doing the same, including in Florida and Texas and others. And we have seen that other states have had long lines and calls to call centers that really inundated their systems. And I would say that in my experience, in 2009, with H1N1, when we actually began to get H1N1 vaccine, we received them in the hundreds, so very, very few. So we created an appointment system which got quickly overwhelmed with hundreds if not thousands of calls. And we don’t want that to happen here in Maryland, which is why we are implementing a phased in approach as the Governor has outlined.
I know that this will continue to be something that we work towards and that in the coming days and weeks we will have more vaccine here in Maryland. Our goal continues to be making sure that every Marylander who wants a vaccine will have access to it. We encourage people to learn more about the vaccine through trusted sources such as our website, covidlink.maryland.gov. While we are still now in the early stages of ramping this up, the Governor has been really strong in his messaging to all of us and our providers that this has to be an all-hands-on-deck effort. And so thank you all for all of the work that you’re doing. Thank you for the work that you’re doing to prevent the continued spread of COVID-19 here in the state of Maryland.
Thank you.
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Thank you, Dr. Chan. With that, we’ll take some questions.
(Question off mic).
They both, the CEOs, of both corporations have assured me they will. Our teams have been working all day with CVS and Walgreens to try to work through any kinks to try to make sure that they will report within 24 hours. I think we will have recourse, but I’m not sure exactly what that will be. Hopefully we won’t have to utilize it. It does have the full force and effect of the law, and they have to follow our directives.
(Question off mic).
They can’t get a vaccine, but we just have a process. If you’re not qualified, you can’t get one, and you should not slow it down for everybody else.
(Question off mic).
Yeah, I do. I said the same thing on television a week and a half ago or so or two weeks ago. This is no time, I don’t think, to be pointing fingers. It’s a massive undertaking. There is good news and bad news. The good news is, we’re way ahead of schedule. And the good news is, we’re getting vaccines in tomorrow. That’s a hopeful, positive message. And we actually started the second doses.
The bad news is, it’s not going as fast as anyone wants. And look, I’m not going to be happy until we’re done. And I’m going to keep pushing and driving 24/7 and I’m not going to leave any stone unturned until we can get it done. I’m never going to be satisfied. That’s just the way I am. But I don’t want to place blame anywhere. Our focus is, how do we help the hospitals finish their job. How do we help the counties. How do we get CVS — two national corporations, I don’t want to tell them what to do with their federal contract, but I’m trying to fix it. I just want to help fix the problem. But I don’t want to blame. Everybody is trying to do their best. There’s not one particular glitch in the system, but it’s only been — it’s been less than 3 weeks and it comes every day. Only the first two hospitals got the first couple doses like 2 and a half weeks ago. First nursing homes like a week or 10 days ago. They got them the first two places got it on January 3rd. We had two holidays. A lot of the staff wasn’t there, they were setting up new systems, they were entering the data, they didn’t have people trained. But yesterday we did 11,600. That’s more than they gave us yesterday. We’re going to catch up. We’re going to outpace. We’re going to get to the point where we go, we don’t have enough vaccines. It will switch. It won’t be like how come you haven’t used them. It will be hey, when can we get some more, in a couple weeks.
(Question off mic).
Montgomery, Howard, Caroline County, and a couple others. 80 some percent.
(Question off mic).
That’s absolutely not true. Everyone has been given the same guidance. They’ve been working with the county Health Departments exactly the same way, almost every single day. PG County and Baltimore City are very far behind but we’re going to try to provide them as much help as we can. We have the National Guard and we’ll be there, whatever it takes to get them up to speed.
(Question off mic).
Well, I explained that earlier. That’s the way the process works. I mean, I heard AA County is complaining that we just found out about it. Well, that’s the way it’s going to happen. They tell us on Thursday, this is what you’re going to get. We then get online, we place the order, we tell them that’s what you’re going to get. You may get it on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday, we don’t know, but you’re going to get this. We’re not holding out on them. That’s the way the process works. That’s the way it’s going to work. They can whine about it or get to work and do their job.
(Question off mic).
Well, we had those conversations with the hospital association and a number of the hospital CEOs. Part of it was over the holidays, which when they were short staffed already — look, they’re overworked. They’re short staffed. They’re trying to help take care of their patients and some people said they were hesitant to get a vaccine while it was the holidays. That will start picking up. Those percentages are going up. Some hospitals are like 80 percent of their staff is getting it. Some are not doing as well. Nursing homes are actually much lower, and that’s a problem we’re more concerned about. But we’re trying to get the hospitals to get a higher percentage of their staff covered. Get the hospital association to do that. And I think we’re going to help convince people that they need to do it. But yeah, we’re going to — we can’t just leave them sitting in freezers at the hospitals. If they’re not going to use them, we’ll send them somewhere else. No question about that. We have let them know that.
Another part of it is, some of the beds are not filled. I heard this discussion today, when you talk about the percentages used, we sent out 100 percent of the beds in nursing homes and 100 percent of the hospitals. They may be 70 percent full. So 70 percent is really 100 percent of only half. They don’t have anymore. There’s 30 percent left, we’ll take it and send it somewhere else.
(Question off mic).
Maybe Dr. Chan can talk…
(Question off mic).
I think we’re going to work our way through that. Right now it’s just discussions with the hospital association, with the head of the hospital systems, saying, look, we really need you to pick up the pace. We’re not here to try to force people to move at a rate faster than they feel is safe and effective, but we want them to know that you can’t just sit around forever because other people are desperately in need of these vaccines and if you’re not going to use them, we’re going to have to figure out something else. There’s no — I don’t think we have an exact deadline. We just have the ability now to say we may have the option to do this. It’s not saying if you don’t use them by this time they’re going to be removed.
(Question off mic).
Well, I guess that’s the million-dollar question, Tom. I have been very clear on my views on this repeatedly. I think it’s a terrible mistake. I think it undermines the very basics of our democracy. You know, there’s no question, there’s no there there. Joe Biden will be sworn in on January 20th as the next President of the United States. This is a perfunctory process that, you know, there’s no question. And for these senators to raise this issue, because Donald Trump is pressuring them to do it I think is a mistake. It’s bad for the country. I think it is destructive to our democracy and I think it diminishes our standing in the world.
(Question off mic).
I haven’t heard any promise about that. I would find it shocking if they would even really seriously consider overriding the veto in the middle of the worst economic crisis we’ve had in our lifetime, in the middle of a global pandemic. We simply can’t afford massive tax hikes in the middle of a crisis. I’m hoping they will cool their heads.
Anybody else?
(Question off mic).
I’m not sure. I’ll let Dr. Chan talk about that.
JINLENE CHAN: Thank you for that question. So we’re looking at individuals who have underlying medical conditions. Of course that might put them at risk for COVID-19. In terms of the general population, it will be in later phases, likely into phase 2.
(Question off mic).
Understood. And, you know, as we get more vaccine, we’ll be able to provide more and more vaccines to the correctional setting. So if we’re able to do them earlier, we certainly will.
(Question off mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Well, I think we’re going to figure out what people at the local government may need. We’re going to try to provide whatever they do need. At this point I don’t think we have any unmet needs but if we do, we’ll certainly make the federal government aware of it.
At this stage for the next, you know, month or two, it’s a limited mission and it’s being handled in the nursing homes and hospitals and local Health Departments and we’re trying to provide support. The next phase is completely different. It will be in every doctor’s office, every pharmacy, we’ll be standing up clinics in the community like we did in testing. Whole different mission. This thing will grow and change as it did with testing. There’s no real strategy and plan nationally. I’m sure it will evolve on an ongoing basis.
SPEAKER: When do you intend to get the vaccine? Do you intend to get the vaccine?
GOVERNOR HOGAN: I do intend to get vaccinated and I haven’t figured out exactly when. I am in a high-risk group with comorbidities but I said I wanted to make sure we were getting them out to our hospitals and nursing homes, which we are doing now. So sometime when it’s appropriate, I certainly will.
Thank you.
Thank you, General. Thank you, Doctor.
We begin 2021 at a critical moment in the war against COVID-19, which continues to pose a serious threat to our state and our nation. While the initial launch of vaccine distributions does offer us a glimmer of hope, we still have a long way to go in this fight. Distributing and administering vaccines throughout 2021 will be, without question, the greatest peacetime undertaking in American history and it will be a massive all-hands-on-deck ongoing operation involving the federal, state, and local governments and private sector.
Over the last nearly 3 weeks, we have already successfully allocated, deployed, and distributed 270,150 doses of vaccines directly into the hands of our front-line vaccinators at nursing homes, hospitals, and Health Departments to begin phase 1A. This represents 98.7 percent of all the doses that the federal government allotted to the state of Maryland. Only 1.3 percent, 3,727 doses, have been retained by the state at the state Health Department for emergency backup reserve purposes..
270,150 doses have already been deployed to every single hospital in Maryland, to all 24 of our local Health Departments across the state, and to CVS and Walgreens, which have a federal contract to handle all of our nursing homes across the state and to support the vaccination of our Maryland front line workers at federal facilities. We distributed them out to healthcare workers for federal facilities and to those who work in facilities in D.C., Marylanders who work in hospitals in the District.
163,225 were sent to every Maryland hospital for critical front line workers. To date, those hospitals have administered 55,941 doses, which is 34.3 percent of the doses which we provided them. Some of our hospitals are doing extremely well, already utilizing as much as 67 percent of their total allocations. While others are still just ramping up. The slowest hospital in the state has completed only 16 percent of their allocation. We have also deployed 35,200 doses to every one of our county Health Departments, and they have begun vaccinating their vaccinators, EMTs and first responders, so that they could, in turn, start up their county vaccination clinics.
Local Health Departments have already administered 11,401 doses, which is 32.4 percent of what we have deployed to them.
Five counties have done a remarkable job and have already completed 80 percent or more of their phase 1A vaccinations. That includes Howard, Montgomery, St. Mary’s, Calvert, and Caroline Counties. Other counties are just beginning to ramp up their operations.
61,425 doses were sent directly to CVS and Walgreens, which have a federal contract to administer vaccines in all 227 of our nursing homes. To date, CVS and Walgreens have entered into our system data showing the completion of 8,503 doses, or just 13.8 percent, which is close to on par with the numbers that they’re doing nationwide, but we’ve been working hard to get to the bottom of all of those provider issues. So I have contacted Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to express our serious concerns about the haste of the federal nursing home program. In addition, I had a long and I would say productive discussion earlier today with both the CEO of CVS, who said they had done nearly twice as many vaccinations in Maryland as are being reported, that they are now working with our team to correct data reporting issues that they had not entered the data into our system yet.
I also spoke with the CEO of Walgreens, who said that they have now scheduled clinics at every single one of the nursing homes they’re responsible for and they’ve been assigned under the federal criteria, the ones that they’ve been assigned. We’re going to continue to stay on top of this. We’re going to be in close contact with CVS and Walgreens to continue monitoring their progress and seeing what we can do to help them continue to ramp up their vaccinations.
Most in the states in America are having very similar issues with those contracts. So we have also reached out to the National Governors Association in an effort to begin some joint dialogues between all of the nations’ governors, our federal partners, and between these pharmacies that are conducting those contracts. While none of us are thrilled with the pace of this roll out over the first couple of weeks, I can assure you that it is improving every day. Our numbers in Maryland are in line with the rest of the nation, and, in fact, we’re ahead of 27 other states.
The good news is that these vaccines have arrived years ahead of schedule, and that they are ramping up much faster than they did when we were back in the spring dealing with testing, back when we led the nation, but it took us almost 9 months to go from 50 tests a day to 50,000. Today alone Maryland reported a record 11,553 new vaccinations, for a cumulative total of 76,916 vaccinations. And I’m pleased to report that second doses have already begun at Maryland hospitals. I want to assure the people of Maryland that we are going to leverage every single resource at our disposal to get more shots into more arms as quickly as we possibly can in a safe and orderly way.
I would like to just take a moment to make sure that Marylanders understand exactly how this vaccine distribution process works. Each week the federal government informs each of the states of their allocation. After that, they open up their ordering system. The federal government has a system called Tiberius. And then states are then able to place our orders directly with them as to where they should ship those doses. And we’re able to then notify our providers, the front-line vaccinators, and then they can immediately begin to have their clinics ready to receive those doses and to begin vaccinating.
So in these early couple weeks, there is a little bit of a lag time. Those orders are shipped out directly to the providers, to those vaccinators, straight from the CDC through operation warp speed. And that process takes about a week, can take as much as a week, but vaccine administration is the responsibility of each of those providers. For example, in phase 1A that we’re in right now, it is the federal contract with CVS and Walgreens that’s responsible for our nursing homes. Maryland hospitals are the ones who are doing their own staffs, and front-line healthcare workers in those hospitals. And our 24 county Health Departments are receiving their doses directly for their own Health Department staffs and their county’s first responders.
All of these providers, I can assure you, have a desire to get these vaccines into the arms of the people who need them as quickly as they possibly can. And no one is attempting to delay. All of us are doing our best to work together at all levels of government and with our private sector partners to get all of our front-line vaccinators whatever resources they need to accelerate the process and to do their jobs as effectively and efficiently as they possibly can.
But today I am announcing some additional steps which we believe will help providers get more shots into more arms quicker in a safe and efficient manner. Last month I reactivated the Maryland National Guard to provide support to state health officials for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccine. Beginning tomorrow, the Guard will begin to dispatch emergency vaccination support teams across the state to assist local Health Departments with the expansion of their vaccination capacity. Each of these emergency teams will include 14 Guard members who will actually assist with the administering of the vaccines and who will also be able to help provide logistical support for vaccination clinics.
Through our Maryland Responds Medical Reserve Corps, which I announced earlier, retired and/or volunteer health workers, we have already identified 700 qualified people who are ready and willing to assist local Health Departments and other clinics with the administering of shots. We’re sharing that with county Health Departments to expand their clinics to 7-day-a-week clinics. Every single resource at our disposal, including additional vaccinators, logistic support, PPE, or whatever we can possibly provide will be provided to help them speed up their pace of vaccinating their workers.
Slow and uneven data reporting has made it extremely difficult to determine where there are issues with vaccine administration. Certain people have said that they’re doing thousands of vaccinations but some hospitals haven’t reported any at all even though they have done quite a bit. We’re trying to fix that. We need to address these reporting lags, particularly some of the hospitals but also with CVS and Walgreens. CVS and Walgreens were given 72 hours to do their reporting under the federal contract, when we’re requiring others to do 24 hours. So I had those discussions with the CEO and President of Walgreens and CVS today, and today I am issuing an executive order that requires all providers in the state of Maryland to report data on to our system, ImmuNet, within 24 hours after vaccines are administered. We will be posting this data publicly and using it to track the progress of every single provider in the state.
The Maryland Department of Health is also issuing an order today which states that any facility which has not administered at least 75 percent 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.
Effective immediately, we will be adopting a new what I’m calling Southwest Airlines model of rolling vaccine allocation model. No doses should be sitting in freezers going unused waiting or backing up while others are in need of more. So we’re going to be adjusting the plan to say that we’re going to no longer be waiting for all members of a particular priority group to be completed before we move on to begin that next group in line. Our message to those who are responsible for doing the vaccinations is clear: Either use the doses that you have been allocated or they will be redirected to another facility or provider, where they will be used immediately.
Every single week we will be continuing to push out vaccines to our hospitals, pharmacies, local Health Departments, and to all the other vaccinators across the state based on need and on utilization. As soon as we move forward from this initial phase 1A, which is an extremely limited supply, we will then be able to scale up to broader vaccination clinics across the state. However, I want to make this point clear. The states are wholly reliant on the federal government and on the two vaccine suppliers, producers, for the supply of vaccines. In the first 3 weeks, we and the other states received 4.4 percent of vaccines for our population. For the foreseeable future, unless there is an increase in production of vaccines from those producers or until new vaccines are approved and made available, we expect to receive about 72,000 doses per week from the federal government, which is roughly 10,000 doses per day. And we’re all hopeful that it will increase from there, and we’ll expect and hope that it will. But right now those are the real numbers that we’re counting on.
Yesterday we already did more than that by vaccinating 11,553 Marylanders in one day, exceeding our daily allotment. So at the current pace of allocation from our federal partners, we would expect to have 1.8 million doses by the end of May, which would represent only 30 percent of our state’s population. So this is going to be a long haul. Dr. Fauci said the other day on television that we could expect to have 60 percent of the national population vaccinated by the fall. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that this week, as I mentioned, we have already begun second doses for some. Not only that, but we have also already expanded our phase 1A populations. Now all licensed, registered, and certified healthcare providers anywhere in the state are eligible for vaccination. Local Health Departments have now begun to make arrangements with providers to get them all vaccinated in the coming days and weeks.
Vaccinations will also soon be under way for all law enforcement agencies, correctional officers, and judiciary staff. But just phase 1A is more than a half million Marylanders. So if you look at that pyramid we have, that little tiny piece at the top, 1A, is a half million people. So I encourage people to be patient. When am I getting it? Why isn’t everybody done? It’s a massive undertaking.
Today, based on the recommendations of the federal advisory committee on immunization practices, which is comprised of public health experts on the use of vaccines, we are announcing updates to our phase 1 of Maryland’s statewide vaccination plan. Our new phase 1B will now include all Marylanders over the age of 75. It will also be expanded to include special needs group homes, high risk inmates, developmentally disabled populations, continuity of government vaccinations, as well as teachers, childcare, and education staff. The Maryland State Department of Education has already begun but they will continue to immediately begin coordination with all of our county school systems to prepare the implementation of their plans to vaccinate this critical personnel.
Overall, this revised phase 1B of our plan now includes approximately 860,000 additional Marylanders.
Based on the current rate of allocation, we anticipate the state being able to move in to phase 1B at the end of January. We have updated our phase 1C to now include all Marylanders aged 65-74 and workers in additional critical sectors, including grocery stores, public transit, agricultural production and manufacturing. Phase 1C now includes an additional 772,000 Marylanders.
Based on the current rate, again, we’re hoping to see that exponentially increase in the weeks and months ahead, but based on the current rate of the allocation we’re receiving from the federal government, we expect to be able to move into phase 1C sometime in March.
Our newly updated phase 2 will now include Marylanders ages 16-64 who are at increased risk of COVID-19 illness due to comorbidities, as well as essential workers in critical utilities and other sectors. So phase 2 will now include another 1.1 million Marylanders. Obviously people have many questions about when they will be eligible. They have many concerns about the safety of the vaccines. And we’re going to continue to try to provide as much information and answer as many questions as possible. But here are some of the ways that you can help to stay informed. First, the state will be issuing regular updates to our statewide texting service. To opt in to receive these alerts, text MdReady to 898-211 so that you can receive updates as soon as new information becomes available.
Second, Marylanders are encouraged to visit covidlink.maryland.gov for all available resources that we have on the state vaccination plan, along with all the safety information regarding the vaccines.
And lastly, we ask everybody to be patient, as this will be a long process. Already we are seeing instances where people are attempting to cut the line and cheat the rules and take appointments away from our front-line healthcare workers. Not only is this reprehensible behavior, but it also slows down the entire process. The more steps that our vaccinators and our providers have to put in place and add to verify the vaccine recipients, the longer that this is going to take for everyone to get their vaccines. So please exercise decency and common sense. While these vaccines do offer us a light at the end of the tunnel and allow us to look ahead to the day the pandemic will no longer disrupt our lives or prevent us from getting back to normal and seeing our loved ones or getting back to work or school, right now we’re still in the thick of this fight. Maryland’s 7-day positivity rate did drop a little bit today to 9.19 percent, but it’s still much higher than we want it to be. Our statewide case rate increased slightly today to 44.0. All 24 of our jurisdictions are still in the red zone for cases according to the federal government. As of today, 1,771 COVID patients are hospitalized in the state. Fortunately this is 8300 beds below what Hopkins had projected for the beginning of January. Better treatments have clearly helped to improve our ability to fight the virus and to keep our hospitalizations stable. As of today the percentage of new cases that lead to hospitalizations has fallen by 72 percent since April. The percentage of new cases that lead to death has fallen by 67 percent since early May. And the percentage of hospitalizations that end in death has fallen by 48 percent since early July.
These are really encouraging numbers. We continue to utilize the alternate care sites opened in the spring. Our critical care coordination center still continues to transfer patients. All of our surge preparations, so we’re still ready to handle any additional surges that may happen.
We are concerned about this much more contagious variant of the virus that originated in the U.K. Now, as of today, with the addition of Georgia, it has been detected in five states and at least 33 countries so far. Our public health laboratory is saying the variant is five times the national rate in the everyday testing but luckily we have not detected a case connected to it yet in Maryland, but this is another reason why we all need to keep being vigilant while we focus on getting these vaccines ramped up and to our front-line healthcare workers and our most vulnerable.
As I have said throughout this entire crisis, we are all in this together, and we will get through this together by staying Maryland Strong.
At this time I’m going to turn it over to General Gowen to address more detail of the support the Guard will be providing to our counties. General?
TIMOTHY GOWEN: Thank you, Governor Hogan, for your leadership throughout this challenging time.
And thanks for an order for every Maryland who has come together and worked tirelessly to combat the spread of COVID-19. As most of you are aware, the Maryland National Guard has a dual mission: Our soldiers and airmen are generally seen deploying overseas to fight America’s wars or putting on uniform here at home to provide aid during a natural disaster. Last March-July, 1500 Maryland National Guard members were activated to combat this pandemic. During that time our troop as sifted with the processing and distribution of more than 59 million pieces of personal protective equipment, and we proudly distributed more than a million meals throughout the state. Our medical support team screened and tested more than 22,000 people, including high risk resident as the 227 skilled nursing facilities.
We all continue to experience immense challenges related to COVID, but the vaccine provides hope, hope of not only slowing this virus, but defeating it.
Over the last several months I’ve assigned some of my best planners to support the Maryland Department of Health to help prepare for this vaccination effort. As the Governor mentioned, starting tomorrow, we will provide direct support to county Health Departments with mobile vaccination support teams with the mission of accelerating vaccination efforts. In Maryland, the National Guard mobile vaccination support team consists of 9-14 medical professionals. Initially we will have close to 200 personnel organized into 14 teams.
Additionally we’re providing manpower to support congregate care in long-term health facilities and additional manpower to support county Health Department testing activities, call assistance, call center assistance, data center analysis, and logistical support. Our military medical specialists are world class professionals who live and work in the communities they serve. These unique capabilities are well suited and integrated when we work alongside our interagency partners and communities. This is an initial capability that we’re fully prepared to execute and will continue to provide the support to the Governor as directed.
I want to thank all the people of this great state for their support and generosity you’ve shown the Maryland National Guard. We are honored to support the great state by serving on the front lines in the communities where we reside and work. We are always there and ready.
Thank you.
Dr. Chan?
JINLENE CHAN: Thank you, General Gowen and Governor Hogan.
I’m glad to be here this evening to make remarks about our vaccine roll out. We’re beginning the new year with hope, as the vaccines have started to roll out in the state as the Governor mentioned.
You know, there’s a lot of work involved in terms of this vaccine roll out, and there are more than 500,000 individuals who are in phase 1A which are comprised of the healthcare workers and the nursing home residents and first responders. Our hospitals have been administering vaccines to their staff members, and again, to some of their community healthcare workers and others.
Our federal partners, CVS and Walgreens, have also been administering vaccines in long-term care facilities and our local Health Departments are ramping up their vaccine efforts at the local level.
As of this week, again, emphasizing that all of the licensed, registered, and certified healthcare workers in the state of Maryland are now eligible for vaccination and distribution to first responders and others, including 911 specialists and correctional officers at the local level and will ramp up in the next few weeks. I’ve been speaking to a number of health officers around the state and talking about their vaccine clinics and about the work that they’ve been doing to stand up those clinics, training staff and others to make sure that vaccines are administered safely and effectively and efficiently. They have all been implementing the plans that have been developed over the course of many years and more specifically over the last few months. Many have started to vaccinate not only their first responders but even other healthcare workers, and they continue to reach out to those populations. And now with appointments, that information will be more available to healthcare workers.
We also want to appreciate of course the National Guard for standing up to support their efforts. Local Health Departments have been working alongside the National Guard and all of our public health and healthcare workers around the state to respond to COVID-19. Testing, contact tracing, and other efforts continue. And now they are standing up a monumental vaccination effort across the state. So it is all hands on deck. So we very much appreciate the support of the Governor as well as the National Guard and others in this effort.
Over the last few weeks we’ve been working very closely with our federal as well as state partners to ensure that vaccines get to facilities in Maryland. As the Governor illustrated, it does take some time from the time that they tell us that we have a vaccine allocation to when we order it, and then when it actually gets delivered here to the state directly to a facility.
And that’s before vaccination even begins. And so over the last few weeks our hospitals and local Health Departments in implementing their plans, there’s a lot that’s been happening behind the scenes, including staff training and education, communications to the eligible groups, coordination with local providers, coordination with local counterparts, fire and EMS, for example.
In addition, they had to set up appointment schedules and make sure that the clinics are set up securely and safely, and also with adequate room to accommodate all of our COVID-19 cautions to avoid crowding in these vaccine clinics. All of this has been happening behind the scenes that perhaps people may not fully appreciate, but this is a lot of logistics and operational work that our local Health Departments, hospitals, and CVS and Walgreens partners have been doing every day for the last few weeks.
So many Marylanders who are currently eligible to get vaccinated, expanded to include all healthcare providers, will be able to get a link to vaccine appointments, including instructions for how to make those appointments, whether it’s at their long-term care facility, within their hospital, or the local Health Department.
Again, I would emphasize that the unauthorized use of these private registration links intended for someone else and directed towards healthcare workers, really if someone uses it in an unauthorized way, it takes us away from our healthcare heroes who are really at the front line of caring for individuals not only with COVID-19 but with so many other conditions. And that is our first priority.
Vaccines will become available to more and more Marylanders, and we are looking forward to advancing into the next phases of our plan as soon as we possibly can, again, dependent on the supply of vaccine that comes to the state.
As we expand into phase 1B populations, and as we receive more vaccine, we also do anticipate expanding the number of providers who will be able to register in our ImmuNet system and to receive vaccines themselves to vaccinate the population. So again, as we expand into 1B, 1C, and beyond, we also will be expanding the number of providers who receive vaccine. So this includes federally qualified healthcare centers, primary care centers, urgent cares, pharmacies, and other location where’s people are accustomed to receiving vaccines.
I wanted to shift gears to another topic the Governor alluded to, the U.K. variant. What I wanted to talk about was that we know that viruses generally will morph. And we’ve seen that even COVID has had some changes genetically over time, but those changes have not really impacted its ability to spread or other characteristics.
However, in this particular instance, what we have seen is that both U.K. and in South Africa I believe have announced that they’ve seen some new variants that may change some of the characteristics of the way that the virus has spread. And as the Governor mentioned, there are some states here in the United States that have already detected the variant here. So it is possible that because of travel, because of other means of spread, that the variant is here in Maryland. But we are staying extremely vigilant. We are working very closely with our CDC partners. And we are conducting the sequencing that is needed to be able to project the potential variant here in Maryland.
While it does appear to spread more easily, we have not seen any evidence that it actually causes more hospitalizations or severe disease or that it increases the risk of death. And that is important to understand.
In addition, I know questions have been raised about whether or not these vaccines that we are rolling out would be effective against this new variant. And right now the answer is that it appears that it will be, but there is more study that’s being done. The vaccines themselves actually protect and create antibiotics against multiple parts of the spike protein, so the change in this particular virus is really only one part of that spike protein that the vaccine is protective against, so we believe that the vaccine will be protective against both this strain and others.
Our public health officials continue to study COVID-19 variants to make sure that we can control their spread, and we ask that Marylanders continue to wear a mask, practice social distancing, and wash their hands, refrain from large gatherings, and other basic public health measures to prevent the spread.
You know, as we roll forward, I know that in discussing our new 1A and 1B prioritization groups, other states have been doing the same, including in Florida and Texas and others. And we have seen that other states have had long lines and calls to call centers that really inundated their systems. And I would say that in my experience, in 2009, with H1N1, when we actually began to get H1N1 vaccine, we received them in the hundreds, so very, very few. So we created an appointment system which got quickly overwhelmed with hundreds if not thousands of calls. And we don’t want that to happen here in Maryland, which is why we are implementing a phased in approach as the Governor has outlined.
I know that this will continue to be something that we work towards and that in the coming days and weeks we will have more vaccine here in Maryland. Our goal continues to be making sure that every Marylander who wants a vaccine will have access to it. We encourage people to learn more about the vaccine through trusted sources such as our website, covidlink.maryland.gov. While we are still now in the early stages of ramping this up, the Governor has been really strong in his messaging to all of us and our providers that this has to be an all-hands-on-deck effort. And so thank you all for all of the work that you’re doing. Thank you for the work that you’re doing to prevent the continued spread of COVID-19 here in the state of Maryland.
Thank you.
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Thank you, Dr. Chan. With that, we’ll take some questions.
(Question off mic).
They both, the CEOs, of both corporations have assured me they will. Our teams have been working all day with CVS and Walgreens to try to work through any kinks to try to make sure that they will report within 24 hours. I think we will have recourse, but I’m not sure exactly what that will be. Hopefully we won’t have to utilize it. It does have the full force and effect of the law, and they have to follow our directives.
(Question off mic).
They can’t get a vaccine, but we just have a process. If you’re not qualified, you can’t get one, and you should not slow it down for everybody else.
(Question off mic).
Yeah, I do. I said the same thing on television a week and a half ago or so or two weeks ago. This is no time, I don’t think, to be pointing fingers. It’s a massive undertaking. There is good news and bad news. The good news is, we’re way ahead of schedule. And the good news is, we’re getting vaccines in tomorrow. That’s a hopeful, positive message. And we actually started the second doses.
The bad news is, it’s not going as fast as anyone wants. And look, I’m not going to be happy until we’re done. And I’m going to keep pushing and driving 24/7 and I’m not going to leave any stone unturned until we can get it done. I’m never going to be satisfied. That’s just the way I am. But I don’t want to place blame anywhere. Our focus is, how do we help the hospitals finish their job. How do we help the counties. How do we get CVS — two national corporations, I don’t want to tell them what to do with their federal contract, but I’m trying to fix it. I just want to help fix the problem. But I don’t want to blame. Everybody is trying to do their best. There’s not one particular glitch in the system, but it’s only been — it’s been less than 3 weeks and it comes every day. Only the first two hospitals got the first couple doses like 2 and a half weeks ago. First nursing homes like a week or 10 days ago. They got them the first two places got it on January 3rd. We had two holidays. A lot of the staff wasn’t there, they were setting up new systems, they were entering the data, they didn’t have people trained. But yesterday we did 11,600. That’s more than they gave us yesterday. We’re going to catch up. We’re going to outpace. We’re going to get to the point where we go, we don’t have enough vaccines. It will switch. It won’t be like how come you haven’t used them. It will be hey, when can we get some more, in a couple weeks.
(Question off mic).
Montgomery, Howard, Caroline County, and a couple others. 80 some percent.
(Question off mic).
That’s absolutely not true. Everyone has been given the same guidance. They’ve been working with the county Health Departments exactly the same way, almost every single day. PG County and Baltimore City are very far behind but we’re going to try to provide them as much help as we can. We have the National Guard and we’ll be there, whatever it takes to get them up to speed.
(Question off mic).
Well, I explained that earlier. That’s the way the process works. I mean, I heard AA County is complaining that we just found out about it. Well, that’s the way it’s going to happen. They tell us on Thursday, this is what you’re going to get. We then get online, we place the order, we tell them that’s what you’re going to get. You may get it on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday, we don’t know, but you’re going to get this. We’re not holding out on them. That’s the way the process works. That’s the way it’s going to work. They can whine about it or get to work and do their job.
(Question off mic).
Well, we had those conversations with the hospital association and a number of the hospital CEOs. Part of it was over the holidays, which when they were short staffed already — look, they’re overworked. They’re short staffed. They’re trying to help take care of their patients and some people said they were hesitant to get a vaccine while it was the holidays. That will start picking up. Those percentages are going up. Some hospitals are like 80 percent of their staff is getting it. Some are not doing as well. Nursing homes are actually much lower, and that’s a problem we’re more concerned about. But we’re trying to get the hospitals to get a higher percentage of their staff covered. Get the hospital association to do that. And I think we’re going to help convince people that they need to do it. But yeah, we’re going to — we can’t just leave them sitting in freezers at the hospitals. If they’re not going to use them, we’ll send them somewhere else. No question about that. We have let them know that.
Another part of it is, some of the beds are not filled. I heard this discussion today, when you talk about the percentages used, we sent out 100 percent of the beds in nursing homes and 100 percent of the hospitals. They may be 70 percent full. So 70 percent is really 100 percent of only half. They don’t have anymore. There’s 30 percent left, we’ll take it and send it somewhere else.
(Question off mic).
Maybe Dr. Chan can talk…
(Question off mic).
I think we’re going to work our way through that. Right now it’s just discussions with the hospital association, with the head of the hospital systems, saying, look, we really need you to pick up the pace. We’re not here to try to force people to move at a rate faster than they feel is safe and effective, but we want them to know that you can’t just sit around forever because other people are desperately in need of these vaccines and if you’re not going to use them, we’re going to have to figure out something else. There’s no — I don’t think we have an exact deadline. We just have the ability now to say we may have the option to do this. It’s not saying if you don’t use them by this time they’re going to be removed.
(Question off mic).
Well, I guess that’s the million-dollar question, Tom. I have been very clear on my views on this repeatedly. I think it’s a terrible mistake. I think it undermines the very basics of our democracy. You know, there’s no question, there’s no there there. Joe Biden will be sworn in on January 20th as the next President of the United States. This is a perfunctory process that, you know, there’s no question. And for these senators to raise this issue, because Donald Trump is pressuring them to do it I think is a mistake. It’s bad for the country. I think it is destructive to our democracy and I think it diminishes our standing in the world.
(Question off mic).
I haven’t heard any promise about that. I would find it shocking if they would even really seriously consider overriding the veto in the middle of the worst economic crisis we’ve had in our lifetime, in the middle of a global pandemic. We simply can’t afford massive tax hikes in the middle of a crisis. I’m hoping they will cool their heads.
Anybody else?
(Question off mic).
I’m not sure. I’ll let Dr. Chan talk about that.
JINLENE CHAN: Thank you for that question. So we’re looking at individuals who have underlying medical conditions. Of course that might put them at risk for COVID-19. In terms of the general population, it will be in later phases, likely into phase 2.
(Question off mic).
Understood. And, you know, as we get more vaccine, we’ll be able to provide more and more vaccines to the correctional setting. So if we’re able to do them earlier, we certainly will.
(Question off mic).
GOVERNOR HOGAN: Well, I think we’re going to figure out what people at the local government may need. We’re going to try to provide whatever they do need. At this point I don’t think we have any unmet needs but if we do, we’ll certainly make the federal government aware of it.
At this stage for the next, you know, month or two, it’s a limited mission and it’s being handled in the nursing homes and hospitals and local Health Departments and we’re trying to provide support. The next phase is completely different. It will be in every doctor’s office, every pharmacy, we’ll be standing up clinics in the community like we did in testing. Whole different mission. This thing will grow and change as it did with testing. There’s no real strategy and plan nationally. I’m sure it will evolve on an ongoing basis.
SPEAKER: When do you intend to get the vaccine? Do you intend to get the vaccine?
GOVERNOR HOGAN: I do intend to get vaccinated and I haven’t figured out exactly when. I am in a high-risk group with comorbidities but I said I wanted to make sure we were getting them out to our hospitals and nursing homes, which we are doing now. So sometime when it’s appropriate, I certainly will.
Thank you.
Thank you, General. Thank you, Doctor.