Where is the COVID vaccine bottleneck? State looking into reporting delays
The state Department of Health on Wednesday said it was accelerating plans to move into Phase 1B with COVID-19 vaccine distribution even thought it is still working through the first round of vaccinations.
“Like many other states, the start of our vaccine rollout in the state of Washington has been uneven at best,” said Secretary of Health Umair Shah at Wednesday’s media briefing. “And yes, we have heard concerns from partners, from the public, from a number of different entities about the pace that we as a state are moving on.
“There have been many challenges to the rollout, some of those challenges are simply out of our control, including that every state has had to figure out on its own in the absence of a national strategy.”
He added, “Over the last several days, I’ve directed changes at the Department of Health level at our agency, as we work with our partners to make sure we are able to deliver on the promise of vaccines. And to do so quickly. One of those changes is an accelerated timeline for moving to even our next grouping, the Phase 1B, which we expect to do in the next coming days.”
Phase 1A includes health care workers and first responders at high risk and residents/staff at long-term care facilities; 1B expands vaccines to four tiers starting with those age 70 or older and those age 50 or older in multi-generational households.
There’s only one, major problem for all the acceleration the state wants to implement, he noted:
“The reality is we just do not have enough vaccine for everyone who needs it right now.”
VACCINES BY THE NUMBERS
So far, 624,975 doses of vaccine have been delivered to the state. State officials on Wednesday said that as of Jan. 11, 201,660 total doses had been administered during Phase 1A. That total includes both the first and second doses of vaccine.
Officials cautioned the number is likely higher given a data delay in reporting totals. A new vaccine data dashboard is set to be unveiled this week as part of the state’s COVID-19 dashboard.
The dashboard will show total doses administered, the number of first doses vs. second doses, and the percentage of the population that is fully vaccinated so far, including doses administered by date.
Acting Assistant Secretary Michele Roberts said the move to 1B will start “in a matter of days.”
While the number of vaccines administered is a small percentage of what’s on hand in state, Shah cautioned there’s more to it than those two numbers.
“The vast majority of vaccine is actually somewhere in the system,” Shah said. “It’s whether it’s in the shelf of a provider, whether it’s being ready to be given in a room of a provider, whether it’s in a hospital system, or whether it’s somewhere in between.”
Roberts said state DOH was working on figuring out the recording delays.
JUGGLING ORDERS WITH SUPPLY
The Trump administration ordered Jan. 12 to open up vaccinations to those 65 and older. Shah said pronouncements like that were not helpful when the vaccine supply itself remains limited.
“You’re making the line longer, but you’re not actually helping people get vaccines because there’s not enough supply,” he said.
“What has not changed with yesterday’s pronouncements in the media from our federal partners is that the vaccine supply for next week, for example, has not been altered,” Shah said. “The key is getting more doses into states. So those states can get them to local communities and into the arm of people.”
Shah called on “our federal partners to really work to get the federal supply in the hands, and to be consistent, and to be timely. And those three things are not happening. We are finding out just a few days before what the supply is that’s going to be coming into the state. In addition to that, we’re also not assured of what the consistent amount of vaccine that’s coming in.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Tuesday also said the U.S. would be releasing all available doses of the vaccine instead of holding about half in reserve for second doses. Also, Azar said it would base each state’s allocation of vaccines in part on how much states have administered those already delivered.
Shah said the state for now is committed to getting everyone two doses.
“We also want to continue to focus on those who we think are the most likely to be impacted by COVID disease, meaning the most vulnerable,” Shah said. “And that’s what our focus has been, from the state standpoint, throughout the last several weeks, two months, has been trying to devise, who are the ones that are more likely to have an adverse event if they were, unfortunately, infected with COVID-19.”
Shah said the governor and health officials have met with CVS and Walgreens on the slow progress being made at care facilities, to which they’ve been administering the vaccines.
“They are really committed to three weeks to get visits done for each group of facility. So for skilled nursing facilities, and then for all the other assisted living type facilities.”
For vaccine delivery among health care systems, he said “we’re working to assess where the gaps are, and find real time solutions to getting those as reported to the state with the level of doses they’d given in the community.”
He also offered a message for those who say the state is moving too slowly.
“Our message to the public is, ‘Look, we’re going as fast as we can. But we need to do better, and we are doing better. And we are going to do even better. However, we also want to do it well.’”
About 58,000 are eligible for the vaccine in Phase 1A in Pierce County, according to Karen Irwin, COVID-19 communications lead for the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.
As of Jan. 13, the health department reported, “About 20,700 people who either live or work in Pierce County have received their first dose of vaccine. Last week, more than 5,000 people received the vaccine.”
About 13,400 vaccine recipients are Pierce County residents, it noted.
This story was originally published January 14, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Where is the COVID vaccine bottleneck? State looking into reporting delays."
