When The COVID Vaccine Gets To You And How It's Administered

 LABELLE, FL. --- Preliminary amounts COVID-19 vaccine under emergency authorization is now ready and being shipped to locations in every state and U.S. Territory. When it will arrive and be ready to inject in individuals will depend on each state, evry state having differing rules and recommendations for who has priority, and where and when it will be given.

The CDC has recommended health care workers be given preference, but over the weekend, rumors surrounded the idea that government officials were being considered for being among those first in line along with health care workers.

The New York Times published an article last week on the Opinion page "Find Your Place In The Vaccine Line" where individuals in any state and county can type in location, age and category of work to get an approximation of where in line one might be and how many people will be ahead of them. 

As noted above, the actual "place in line" will depend on state rules, which may be changing frequently over the next months. State plans range from 35 pages to 100 pages long with some sates still lacing plans.

Currently waiting in line in Florida are about 1.1 million licensed healthcare workers, followed by one-quarter million in nursing homes, 191,000 first responders, 6.5 million with health risks, 1.1 million other elderly, half-million essential workers, 411,000 teachers, 37,000 homeless, 106,000 prisoners, 2.4 million young adults, 4 million children, 781 other essential workers, and 3.2 million others

NYT Find Your Place In Line

Florida's Vaccination Plan (Draft form from October)

How the vaccine is administered

The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine is supplied as a frozen [between -80°C to -60°C (- 112°F to -76°F)] multi-dose (5-dose) vial. The vaccine must be thawed and diluted in its original vial with 1.8 mL of sterile 0.9% Sodium Chloride Injection, USP prior to administration. 

After dilution, the vial contains 5 doses of 0.3 mL per dose. After dilution, the multiple-dose vials must be stored between 2°C to 25°C (35°F to 77°F) and used within 6 hours from the time of dilution. 

The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, BNT162b2 (30 μg), is administered intramuscularly (IM) as a series of two 30 μg doses (0.3 mL each) 21 days apart.