Health officials urge patience in waiting for COVID vaccinations
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| First responders get COVID vaccines. [Fairfax County Health Department] |
Health officials urged the public to be patient, as they wait for a chance to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
Demand far outstrips the supply, they said at a town hall meeting hosted by Del. Kaye Kory (38th District-Annandale), state Sen. Dave Marsden (38th District-Annandale), and Del. Mark Levine (45th District-Alexandria).
Kory said she has heard from many constituents concerned about the “lack of information and confusion,” and all three have gotten lots of complaints from residents who’ve been trying to get through to the Fairfax County Health Department to register for a vaccination.
“This is extremely frustrating,” Levine said. “There are high expectations. We don’t have the supply. . . There is not enough vaccine nationwide.” It’s not the fault of the state or local health department; “it’s because the Trump Administration didn’t order enough vaccines last summer when they could have.”
“It’s hard to tell people to be patient when we’ve been waiting 10 months for this,” he said.
System overwhelmed
When Fairfax County invited people age 65 and over and people with health risks to start registering for vaccinations on Jan. 18, there were so many people trying to sign up, both the phone and computer systems crashed.
It’s working now, and so far 132,000 people registered, said Dr. Gloria Addo-Ayensu, director of the Fairfax County Health Department. However, the county only has enough vaccines for 10,000 people a week.
Getting everyone in group 1b (65+ and essential workers) vaccinated will take months. The whole state of Virginia is only getting 105,000 doses a week, while there are half a million people in Fairfax County alone eligible for a vaccine.
When the state opened vaccinations to group 1b, it expected to get a larger supply of doses, but that’s not happening.
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chair Jeffrey McKay sent a letter to Gov. Ralph Northam Jan. 20 asking for a bigger allotment of doses for Fairfax County.
Related story: Limited COVID vaccine supply means getting group 1b vaccinated will take months
Those who do register with the Fairfax County Health Department will be contacted in a few weeks to make an appointment. Vaccinations are being administered at the Fairfax County Government Center and at four of the county’s health offices.
The Health Department is also conducting closed vaccination clinics for people in law enforcement, public safety, and similar workers, and Inova is vaccinating school employees.
As of Jan. 22, 30,169 people had been vaccinated, including healthcare workers, essential workers, and people who meet the age requirement or have health risks, Addo-Ayensu said.
About 3,000 vaccinations were scheduled for Jan. 23, and the Health Department is planning to vaccinate about 10,000 people a week.
Everyone who registered should “rest assured; you are in the queue,” Addo-Ayensu said. People won’t be informed about an appointment until it’s close to the appointment time. After the first dose, people will be automatically scheduled for the second dose, which will be given three or four weeks later.
“We only schedule people when there is enough vaccine for them,” she said. The Health Department schedules 5,000 vaccinations at a time.
People who register will be vaccinated on a first-come, first-served basis. If people don’t respond when given an appointment, they will be put in the next block of people, she said.
When people under age 65 register who say they have serious health risks, they are asked a few questions, but it’s self-reported. “We take people at their word,” Addo-Ayensu said.
People who speak a language other than English or have trouble with technology can register by calling 703-324-7404. The call center is available 9 a.m.-7 p.m. on weekdays and 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.
When the county gets an increased supply, she said, it will reach out to Inova, Safeway, Giant, and private healthcare providers to help vaccinate more people.
Inadequate supply
Virginia has received 1,010,150 total doses, and so far has administered 443,760 doses. Statewide, 19,754 doses are administered each day on average.
That might seem like Virginia has more vaccine doses than are being used, but that’s not the case, said Dr. Danny Avula, vaccine coordinator with the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) and director of the Richmond City and Henrico County health departments.
The discrepancy is due in part to a lag in data entry, Avula said. The VDH is working on improving its data reporting system, but meanwhile, “some health systems aren’t talking to each other and in some rural areas, data has to be entered manually.”
Also, Avula said, some vaccines are being held back for large vaccination events across the state starting next week and some are being held for second doses. But all will be used. “There are no vaccines sitting on shelves.”
Virginia is distributing vaccines through several channels: the hospital system, health districts, pharmacy partners program (for long-term care facilities), general providers, and mass public vaccination clinics.
So far, CVS and Walgreens have vaccinated about 60,000 staff and residents of long-term care facilities, and the VDH hopes other pharmacies will join that effort.
Close to 200,000 of the state’s healthcare workers have been vaccinated by hospitals and health systems, and about 5,000 doses were given to state correctional facilities last week.
Eventually, when enough vaccines are available, the VDH plans to set up 10 to 12 fixed vaccination centers across the state staffed by the National Guard and able to vaccinate 1,000 to 2,000 people a day.
The doses not being reserved for special populations, events, and hospitals are being distributed to regions based on population.
Virginia will continue to get just 105,000 doses a week for the next couple of months. That is “woefully inadequate,” Avula said.
According to Avula, Virginia should receive a larger supply of vaccines in March or April when Pfizer is able to increase production and new vaccines from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca could be approved.
Meanwhile, he urges local health officials to give people “realistic expectations” about when they can be vaccinated.
2 responses to “Health officials urge patience in waiting for COVID vaccinations”
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The Trump administration couldn't have been much worse with handling the pandemic, but it's the state and regional governments who have badly fumbled the distribution of vaccine doses. Delegate Levine is quoted saying that people are impatient having waited 10 months for the vaccine. Those 10 months should have been enough lead time for a better organization of distribution resources and community outreach. Delegate Kory talks of constituents lacking information and all three officials at the town hall meeting were aware that residents have found registration through the County health department difficult. On top of this, the state health department apparently needs to improve a data reporting system that still relies heavily on manual data entry and disconnected regional health systems. These are all issues that should have been dealt with before vaccine availability. The Federal response might have been a mess, but as of January 22nd, Virginia ranked 49 out of 50 states for doses received versus doses administered. That puts the state just above Alabama from being on the bottom and 48 places below our neighbors in West Virginia.
Del. Levine is wrong to narrow the vaccine problem to simply being a supply mistake on the federal level. This phase is currently a failure on the state and regional level. Supervisor Gross' most recent column in the Falls Church News Press stops just sort of blaming the Governor for the Phase 1b registration nightmare. But she also speaks of all the technical glitches that the County health website and phone system have suffered since the vaccine rollout earlier this month. With nearly a year to prepare, a county with resources like Fairfax should have done better. And with Virginia currently posting the third highest week-to-week change in confirmed COVID cases nationally, time is running out.
Yesterday USA Today rated Virginia dead last in states in percentage of shots vs supply that they had already received. So either Virginia is bad at administering shots or they are bad at recording them. Either show a lack of preparation and competence. Recently, Virginia has reneged on vaccine to Virginia Hospital Center and seem to be planning large facilities for crowds of people. That means long lines, I suspect for people (elderly) who shouldn't have to wait in long lines if they make appointments. A friend in Texas made an appointment at one such facility. She went 30 minutes early and spent 6 hours in line. Let's hope Virginia has a better plan, but so far they don't inspire confidence.