The state Department of Health has elaborated on a mistake it made in distributing the Moderna vaccine.

In a news conference Thursday, state officials said that they found an issue last weekend with the way they've been shipping Moderna vaccines.

Spokesman Barry Ciccocioppo said some pharmacies and other smaller providers have been administering their shipment of second doses wrongly as first doses.

State officials said they did not know specifically which pharmacies had done this, but they will look into the matter after they are able to correct the problems that caused the blunder in the first place.

“There's blame on both sides,” said Ciccocioppo. “The fix we're putting in place will take about three weeks.”

Ciccocioppo said that in the future, there will be further emphasis on communication, particularly when it comes to which shipments are meant for which doses.

According to a data table listing the vaccine providers and their weekly shipments, at least six Butler County providers have received shipments of the Moderna vaccine. The state tends to send out only 100 doses of the vaccine to smaller pharmacies and health centers.

Saxonburg Drug has received four shipments, including two last week; Petroleum Valley Medical Center has received three consecutive shipments in the past three weeks; Colonial Pharmacy in Sarver has received three shipments; and Hometown Pharmacy in Harmony has received two shipments.

A representative from Petroleum Valley Medical Center said they are aware of the problems the state has discovered, but noted the center just began receiving first-dose shipments and has yet to receive any second-dose shipments.

Butler Health System and UPMC Passavant in Cranberry Township have consistently received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in the past nine weeks.

State officials also noted that the mistakes did not affect distribution of the Pfizer vaccine, which has largely been given to hospitals that have the necessary equipment to store the vaccine. However, the two different vaccines are shipped in the same way, with no indicators given on the packaging or documents inside it.

Ciccocioppo said that first- and second-dose shipments are separated by packaging, but he admitted there is nothing on the package to indicate which set of doses is contained within. He also said the shipments do not contain a ledger or inventory of this information either.

“We have to make sure everyone gets their second dose,” Ciccocioppo said. “Then, we'll look into what happened and where.”

As part of the first priority, the state will begin pulling back on first-dose allotments of the Moderna vaccine and shifting those first doses for second-dose use, according to Ciccocioppo.

He said everyone who has received a first dose will receive a second dose within the 42-day threshold recently updated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We need to make sure this gets fixed now,” Ciccocioppo said.

According to department data, 18,367 Butler County residents have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 7,590 have received both doses. The data does not differentiate which type of vaccine the residents received.

According to Thursday's report by the state Department of Health, four more county residents have reportedly died from COVID-19. The new deaths bring the county's death toll to 360.

The report also showed an increase of 14 new confirmed cases, which brings the county's pandemic-wide total number of confirmed cases to 8,740.