Gov. Pete Ricketts says he’s reasonably satisfied with Nebraska’s distribution of coronavirus vaccines despite a slowdown last month, but he’s also urging residents to remain patient and expect some logistical delays.
Ricketts says the state has received an additional 40,000 doses in the last couple of days after having two brief slowdowns in distribution around Christmas and after New Year’s Day, and will get the doses distributed over the next few days.
As of Saturday evening, Nebraska had distributed 141,478 doses of vaccine to entities around the state and 73,842 of them had been administered.
Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require 2 doses about 3 weeks apart to be the most effective and only 9.094 second doses have been given so far.
Nebraska Health and Human Services reported 1,006 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Saturday along with 1,336 recoveries and 4 deaths, dropping the number of active cases to 54,871.
There are 471 coronavirus patients hospitalized, 7 fewer than Friday and the lowest since late October. 34% of Nebraska hospital beds, 36% of ICU beds, and 75% of ventilators remain available.
There have been 175,620 total cases with 120,729 recoveries and 1,737 deaths in Nebraska since the beginning of the pandemic.