Del. receives remaining 7,800 doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine

DOVER, Del. – The Delaware Division of Public Health has announced that Delaware received the remaining 7,800 pre-ordered doses of the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

The initial 975 doses arrived on Monday at Bayhealth’s Kent County campus in Dover. Governor John Carney and Bayhealth announced on Tuesday that Elisabeth Cote, a progressive care unit nurse at Bayhealth was the first in the state to receive the vaccine.

On the first day of vaccination, Bayhealth administered 88 doses of the vaccine, according to information reported by the health care system.

The latest shipment we’re told arrived at DPH’s warehouse in Kent County on Wednesday, where the doses will be kept at below-freezing temperatures in the state’s ultra-cold storage unit until they are ready to be shipped to their final destinations. Most of these doses will be distributed to the state’s five remaining healthcare systems, including Beebe Healthcare, ChristianaCare, Nemours duPont Hospital for Children, Saint Francis Healthcare, and TidalHealth Nanticoke, in the next 24 to 48 hours.

“This is a historic moment for us in Public Health, and I can’t express how eager I am to get the vaccine into the hands of our partners at the health care systems, so they can start to vaccinate their frontline and essential staff,” said DPH Director Dr. Karyl Rattay. “They have faithfully cared for the sickest Delawareans while bravely risking their own health and often sacrificing contact with their own families to keep us all healthy and safe. It is our greatest hope that those same health care workers will now care for themselves by receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. It is the best protection we can offer them, and one of the ways we will beat this virus.”