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Tennessee Receives Nearly 1,000 Backup Doses Of Pfizer COVID Vaccines

A box of vials containing the COVID-19 vaccine
Courtesy TN Department of Health
Tennessee lawmakers are expected to discuss masks, vaccines and other restrictions related to coronavirus when they convene for a COVID-centered special session next week.
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Tennessee has not begun inoculating the first group of COVID vaccine recipients yet, but the state already received an emergency supply of nearly 1,000 doses Monday.

The backups from Pfizer are in case any of the 56,500 doses expected to arrive Thursday are damaged. That first delivery will be split among 74 hospitals in the state.

The vaccine is administered in two rounds, so another delivery of 56,500 more doses is expected to come a few weeks from now.

State Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey acknowledges that the initial supply is limited, but frontline health care workers and those who work or live at long-term care facilities will be the first to receive it.

Filed Under: Coronavirus Live Updates, Health Care

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Rachel Iacovone, Director of Multiplatform Publishing

Rachel Iacovone (YAH-kuh-VOAN-ee) is WPLN's Director of Multiplatform Publishing, which is a long way of saying she leads all the ways the news reaches you (this website, social media, This Is Nashville and more). She began her public radio career covering politics in Florida during the 2016 presidential race. In 2019, Rachel came to Nashville as a local Morning Edition, and later All Things Considered, host before her passion for data deep dives, visualizations, photography and social media storytelling pulled her off air and put her online fully.

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