COLUMBUS (AP) — Ohio says the next weekly shipment of its Pfizer coronavirus vaccine will be lower than previously estimated.
Melanie Amato, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health, which is overseeing the vaccine distribution for Ohio, says previous estimates for the second full week of Pfizer vaccines were about 123,000 doses.
Amato said Friday the current allocation is about 70,200.
She says the second allocation is lower than previously estimated by the federal government.
Several other states also say they have been told to expect far fewer doses of the Pfizer vaccine in its second week of distribution.
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An Associated Press tally shows that more than half the $98 million Ohio spent on personal protective equipment and ventilators in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic went to buy hospital gowns.
That included the purchase of 3 million gowns from an Ohio-based marketing and printing company that got them from a manufacturer in China.
The state also made two gown orders totaling $6 million from La La Land Production.
That is a Los Angeles-based manufacturer that said it pivoted from high-end fashion products to personal protective equipment in an effort to “to save lives and livelihoods.”
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The state reported 26,628 new cases of COVID-19 over the past three days, an average of 8.876 per day. That is below the 21-day rolling average of 9,923 and brought the total number of cases to 622,806.
The number of deaths passed 8,000 as an additional 80 were reported over the weekend.
There were 4,758 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 Sunday, a decrease of 550 since Dec. 15 and the occupancy rate dipped to 17.5% of the state’s inpatient hospital beds.
The seven-day positivity rate fell to 14%.