The rollout of the coronavirus vaccine in Maryland and Virginia is seeing a slow start, with both vaccinations — and the online data dashboards that track them — lagging behind, according to reports.
Maryland has given out more than 65,000 thousand doses of the coronavirus vaccine as of Monday, according to the state health department’s dashboard.
That’s just over 1% of the state’s population.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show Maryland has vaccinated just over 1,000 people out of every 100,000. That puts the state ahead of just 10 other states.
Holiday interruptions, distribution issues and delayed reporting by contractors has been a problem, according to the Baltimore Sun.
Dr. Leana Wen, a former Baltimore health commissioner told the Sun that the state needs dedicated staffing with real-time tracking of vaccines so officials know where more resources are needed.
Mike Ricci, a spokesman for Gov. Larry Hogan, told the Sun that the governor warned the launch would be slow after the federal government “was setting all kinds of expectations” about the vaccine.
Hogan will address the vaccine rollout Tuesday afternoon.
Data from the Virginia Department of Health on Monday showed that fewer than 90,000 vaccines have been administered, barely 20% of the state’s current shipments, according to the Richmond Times Dispatch.
Gov. Ralph Northam’s office said that Virginia’s problem right now is data reporting and that it’s taking time for computer systems to feed into the immunization portal.
Alena Yarmosky, spokeswoman for Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, said in a statement: “Virginia’s main hiccups right now are around data reporting — our health care personnel have been 100% focused on getting shots in arms, but it’s taking a moment for reporting to catch up and for different computer systems to feed seamlessly into the Commonwealth’s central immunization data portal.”
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Looking for more information? D.C., Maryland and Virginia are each releasing more data every day. Visit their official sites here: Virginia | Maryland | D.C.
