Doylestown Hospital Receives First Shipment Of COVID-19 Vaccine

DOYLESTOWN, PA — Doylestown Hospital is one of nine Pennsylvania hospitals that have received the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine, state health officials announced Wednesday.

The initial 97,500 doses in the commonwealth have been slated for 87 hospitals shipped directly from Pfizer by Monday, Dec. 21, according to the state health department. This comes four days after the Food and Drug Administration approved emergency use of the vaccine and an initial shipment of nearly 3 million doses across the United States.

Doylestown Hospital received 1,950 doses of the vaccine on Wednesday, which they will begin administering to frontline healthcare workers on Thursday, hospital spokesperson Beth Long said.

RELATED: 3 Bucks Co. Hospitals To Get COVID-19 Vaccine This Week

Lower Bucks Hospital in Bristol and St. Mary's Medical Center in Langhorne are slated to receive the vaccine later this week, Bucks County officials announced Tuesday. County Health Department Director Dr. David Damsker said he expects the rest of the county's hospitals to receive vaccine doses in subsequent shipments.

Hospital sites are selected by their ability to manage the "cold chain" requirement with the Pfizer-BionTech vaccine doses, which are stored at temperatures well below freezing, according to the state health department.

Due to its limited supply, the vaccine will be available in three phases which are each expected to last for several months. Health care and frontline workers are first in line to receive the vaccine, followed by critical populations and other essential workers. In the second phase, essential workers who cannot work remotely will be given priority, and the third phase covers the rest of the population.

“These first doses of vaccine are being given specifically to health care workers through hospitals,” Health Secretary Rachel Levine said. “Hospitals are making arrangements to implement these vaccinations, not only to their own frontline staff but to other high-priority recipients. The number of people we can immunize truly depends on how quickly the manufacturers can make the vaccine.”

Other hospitals that received the vaccine Tuesday excluding the Philadelphia area include:

• Evangelical Community Hospital, Lewisburg, Union County;
• Geisinger Wyoming Valley, Wilkes Barre, Luzerne County;
• Geisinger-Lewistown Hospital, Lewistown, Mifflin County;
• Titusville Area Hospital, Titusville, Crawford County;
• UPMC- Presbyterian Hospital, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County and
• WellSpan Good Samaritan Hospital, Lebanon, Lebanon County.

Subscribe to your local Patch newsletter. You can also have them delivered to your phone screen by downloading the app on iTunes or by visiting the Google Play store.