By Susan J. Demas, Michigan Advance

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told Michigan it will receive about 24,000 fewer doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine next week that was originally planned.

Michigan was supposed to get 84,000 doses, but that has been reduced to 60,000, per a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson, who said that no explanation was given.

Other states have been told of a similar shortfall, including Washington and Iowa.

This week, Michigan health care workers were among the first to be vaccinated following the Federal Drug Administration’s emergency authorization Friday of Pfizer’s vaccine. DHHS Chief Medical Executive Dr. Joneigh Khaldun is scheduled to get vaccinated as part of a press conference Thursday night at Henry Ford Health Hospital.

Pfizer said in a statement that “no shipments containing the vaccine are on hold or delayed. This week, we successfully shipped all 2.9 million doses that we were asked to ship by the U.S. Government to the locations specified by them. We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses.”

A senior President Trump administration official, however, spoke on the condition of anonymity to the Washington Post and said the reduction amounted to a scheduling issue, as states requested “n expedited timeline for locking in their allocations for the following week.”

The confusion has caused many states to question whether Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccine accelerator program, has the ability to effectively meet the goal of distributing 20 million doses by the end of December, the Post reports.

Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a network of news outlets supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan Demas for questions: [email protected]. Follow Michigan Advance on Facebook and Twitter.