Lincoln, NE (January 4, 2020) During a briefing at the State Capitol this morning, Governor Pete Ricketts and the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services provided an update on the State of Nebraska’s work to deploy coronavirus vaccines. 

Gov. Ricketts: Coronavirus Vaccination

• Vaccinations have been proceeding expeditiously here in Nebraska.
• National data shows that Nebraska has been in the top third in the nation in terms of how quickly we are getting vaccine to people as we receive it.
• Over the weekend, we launched a new vaccination dashboard, so you can track how our work is proceeding across the state.

Angie Ling: Coronavirus Vaccination

• As of today, we have received 63,070 primary doses in the State of Nebraska and 23,400 primary doses to the Federal pharmacy program for long term care facilities.  This is a total of 86,470 doses in the month of December.
• Also, our first shipment of Pfizer second doses arrived late last week.
• Last week, over 100 long term care facilities were vaccinated by the federal pharmacy program and many more by local health departments and community pharmacy partners.
• Shipments of vaccine product continue to go to Phase 1A providers to include hospitals, community healthcare providers, federally qualified health centers, pharmacies, and local health departments.
• The prioritized tiers for phase 1A and phase 1B are located on the DHHS website under vaccine information.
• As we prepare for Phase 1B, we will be working with the local health departments and community partners to help with vaccinations.  Citizens aged 75 and older will be the priority for Phase 1B.

o  Vaccinations will be accomplished through multiple methods such as community vaccine clinics with the health departments, healthcare providers, and pharmacy partners.

o  We are still finalizing these details and will get the information out as soon as possible.

o  In most areas, this phase will not start for another 2-3 weeks so we ask for patience as we finalize these details.

• We will be introducing a website in the coming weeks for citizens to register for vaccinations so they will be told when their priority group is ready to be vaccinated and also assist with scheduling and follow-up reminders.
• A reminder that the state will be moving through the phases asynchronously.  This means that while we are still focusing on healthcare in one area, another area may be starting on phase 1B populations.
• The vaccine dashboard is now available on the DHHS website.  You can find it in the same location as the COVID-19 dashboard and toggle between the two different dashboards.
• We will continue to provide weekly updates and we look forward to our ongoing efforts to get Nebraskans vaccinated.

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