FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) — A mistake made by Kroger accidentally inflated Kentucky's vaccination numbers, according to Governor Andy Beshear.
"What it does to our numbers hurts a little bit," said Beshear at his Thursday press conference.
Beshear explained that Kroger reported its vaccination numbers to the federal Tiberius database twice - through the Kentucky immunization registry and directly to the CDC.
“This was not intentional by anyone," said Beshear. "They were submitting it in two ways and assumed there would be a de-duplication algorithm in the federal database."
An estimated 431,100 total vaccines doses will be removed. That includes an estimated 252,500 first doses - which is the metric Kentucky uses.
In total, this will lower the total number of unique Kentuckians vaccinated from approximately 2.78 million to 2.53 million. The percentage of Kentuckians vaccinated with at least one dose is going to decrease to around 56% or 57%, according to Beshear.
He said the percentage of Kentuckians vaccinated in each age group will be adjusted downward by approximately 5% to 7.5% for each of the age groups.
The adjustments may be large in some counties and nonexistent in others. It all depends on how many people were vaccinated by Kroger pharmacies.
"There are going to be some counties that had larger clinics with Kroger that could be adjusted downward as much as 20%," said Beshear. "We think Franklin County will probably be hit the hardest."
The Governor said he expects the duplicates to be deleted on Thursday night, Oct. 28. He expects the adjustments in the data to be seen within a few days.
