The Twin States received their first shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, about 12,675 doses in New Hampshire and 1,950 in Vermont.

Meanwhile, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center was preparing to receive an estimated 850 doses from New Hampshire’s allotment within about a day.

“This is an important milestone and an essential step toward defeating a virus that’s devastated families and businesses throughout Vermont and around the globe,” Gov. Phil Scott said in a statement. “There is no better, safer or faster way to defeat this virus and work to rebuild our economy than a successful effort to make vaccines available to every single Vermonter.”

The first shipments were expected to be distributed to at-risk health workers, including front-line clinical staff providing direct patient care.

Subsequent allotments would be distributed to residents of long-term care facilities and first responders.

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health expects its first vaccine shipment of about 850 doses to DHMC’s Lebanon campus “in the next day or so,” spokesman Rick Adams said Monday evening.

“We’re ready to receive the vaccines, but the exact day and time of delivery are, as I write this to you now, still to be determined,” Adams said.

The health care system’s Vaccine Planning Committee has spent weeks preparing, he said, and D-H will follow guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and New Hampshire DHHS to determine the order in which frontline staff will be vaccinated.

“We are standing up vaccination clinics for those employees, and working to train staff to administer the vaccine appropriately and safely, and will be communicating vaccination plans to the first phase of employees who work on the hospital campus very soon,” he said.

In an email to employees on Monday, officials said the health care system’s goal is “to have our entire workforce immunized over the next three months.”

Employees on the “priority list for the first round of vaccines” were to be notified by email starting on Tuesday so they could review D-H’s policies and schedule their shots.

“Vaccination is encouraged but not mandatory, and there will be no negative consequences if the employee decides against receiving the vaccine,” according to the email.

In Vermont, the University of Vermont Medical Center and the state each received 975 doses Monday, state officials said. The 1,950 doses marked the first part of a weekly 5,850-dose shipment expected through December.

On Tuesday, the Health Department will receive an additional 1,950 doses, and another 1,950 doses will ship later this week directly to pharmacies that have contracted with the federal government to administer vaccines at long-term care facilities.

Officials from New Hampshire’s Department of Health and Human Services and governor’s office declined to identify the Granite State’s distribution sites or their apportionment of the state’s nearly 13,000 doses, citing “an abundance of caution for the security of the vaccine,” according to DHHS spokesman Jake Leon.

“We are being cautious with safety and security around these initial batches and will have information about their distribution once they have occurred,” Leon said.

Dartmouth-Hitchcock is referring questions from patients about the coronavirus vaccine to the organization’s website.

What hospital officials do know is that early supplies of the vaccine will be limited, that there’s no reason to call your health care provider yet and that officials are hopeful that over the next few months most people in high-risk groups will have the opportunity to get vaccinated.

They advise patients to continue to wear a mask, practice physical distancing and wash hands regularly.

Nearly 32,000 people have tested positive for the virus in New Hampshire, with 919 cases announced Monday that included results from several days earlier in the week.

On Monday, the Vermont Health Department reported 104 new cases across the state of the virus, bringing the statewide total since the pandemic began to just under 5,860. There are currently 26 people hospitalized across the state with four of those being treated in intensive care units.

The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases has risen in both states in the two-week period from Nov. 29 to this past Sunday, up from 400 per day in New Hampshire and 71.14 in Vermont, to over 880 and 105.43, respectively.