PORTLAND, Maine — Maine's retail pharmacies have more than 14,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to administer this week, a drop of more than 50 percent from last week's allocation.
The allocations retail pharmacies receive as part of the Federal Retail Pharmacy Partnership are separate from what the state of Maine's Immunization Program (MIP) receives. Those doses that go to the MIP are distributed to hospitals, clinics, EMS units, and others around the state.
For the week of April 12, retail pharmacies will have 14,420 doses of vaccine, according to the Maine CDC. Last week, they received 34,190, which represents a drop of 58 percent.
Last week, Maine administered a record number of doses.
"These fluctuations in supply are somewhat temporary. We hope, we anticipate, we've been told the J&J supply will, in fact, increase by the end of the month," Maine CDC Director Dr. Nirav Shah said on Thursday, April 8, during a media briefing.
At that time, he was not aware of the allocations to FRPP locations.
"It's not desirable. It's not ideal whatsoever," Shah said. "We recognize a lot of those groups were anticipating, banking on the fact, that they were going to get doses so they could vaccinate their patients, their constituents, would that were the case, I wish we had more supply coming in."
This comes as Maine opened eligibility for vaccines to those 16 and older on Wednesday, April 7. Demand for appointments is extremely high.
"The demand for vaccine still outstrips the supply we are getting," Shah said. "Put it differently, more folks want vaccine than we've got for them right now."
Shah advised anyone who has made multiple appointments to cancel any extras after they have confirmed which one they will go to.