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You would have thought Billy Joel was in town for a concert. “They arrived at 7:40 p.m.,” said Gretchen Smith, spokesperson for the Flagler health department, of the first load of cars that arrived at the county fairground on Friday evening, ahead of the event. vaccination against coronavirus the next day. It was not to start before 2 p.m. “They had snacks, they had backgammon, she said it was a beautiful night, then she said the next car came at 11pm.”
When a team of 70 staff from the Flagler County Health Department and Volunteer Services volunteers began immunizing at around 9:15 a.m., the line of cars on County Road 13 extended to US 1, although there are only 600 vaccines to distribute today, with more to come next week: the health department awaits its second shipment, this one of 500 vaccines, on Monday, and more days vaccination on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, or while stocks last.
By noon, between 350 and 400 people had been vaccinated, most of them healthcare workers who do not work at a local hospital or assisted living facility, or people 65 and over. Although the event was designed primarily for healthcare workers, the ministry said it would not turn away anyone 65 and over, as per the governor’s order to prioritize this age group.
Of these 350 to 400 vaccinated people, none reported any form of distress as the vaccinated lined up in a field for 15 minutes to observe. If there had been any issues – an allergic reaction or whatever – they would have honked their horns and the health department staff would have rushed in with some sort of rolling metal cabinet containing everything needed for a immediate help in the event of a reaction, including an oxygen cylinder. But it remained unused all morning and afternoon, alongside the team of health department staff preparing blow after blow for the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine.
The biggest problem was a stuck car. “We need jumper cables at station four, please,” the director of the health department said at one point into his portable radio.
Despite serious delays in administering vaccine doses, chaos, disorganization, unanswered questions and uncertainty as to when and where the next doses will arrive – the Trump administration raise the shoulders all delivery and logistics responsibilities to the state and localities already overwhelmed by the pandemic – the fairground event went relatively well, with more cheers and thanks than people turned down. It was hastily organized by the county’s health department and emergency management division, the double-barreled organizational system that has been handling the pandemic locally since March.
“At one point we hit US 1, when it actually happened we did a rough car count, and we actually told anyone who wasn’t already online, we knew for sure who ‘They weren’t going to get the vaccine,’ Jonathan Lord, who heads emergency management and was at the fairgrounds, said around 11:30 am.
“We’re probably going to bring in all the people who have been lined up since this morning, because there were no more cars there on the 13th,” said Bob Snyder, the director of the health department, at 11:30 am. (More cars would actually be lined up later, but he wasn’t sure those occupants would be vaccinated.) “Today was the only day we didn’t have an appointment. It was specifically for healthcare workers, who are the majority of people from what we can tell, ”Snyder said. “We will vaccinate 600 people before the end of the day.”
At start-up, the teams managed to vaccinate five cars in 12 minutes. By noon it was five cars in four minutes.
The process started at the first station with Lisa Sanchez and her team checking people’s IDs – professional ID showing they were healthcare workers, or a driver’s license showing they were over 65 years. No one was turned down, even though the person was from out of the county.
The wait was not short: with hundreds of cars lined up, the health teams, organized into four stations where motorists took turns stopping (one for paperwork, one for screening, one for the actual shots, one for the 15-minute wait.), five full wagons were processed every 12 minutes at the start of the event. But as was the case earlier this week when the inoculations took place at the county emergency operations center, the mood was more festive than apprehensive. There was no sign of impatience.
Starting next week, the county will have an online portal for people who schedule their dates. “Depending on how many vaccines we will definitely see on Monday,” Lord said (county and health officials have learned over the months to never count Covid-related material until it’s in. possession), “we will open as many appointments. People will make an appointment and then show up here at their meeting time. The Eventbrite dating site will not go live until the county receives the vaccines.
People can also sign up to receive SMS alerts. People who have not been vaccinated today received a leaflet explaining how to get vaccine updates by signing up and sending “Flaglercovid” to 888-777.
“Once we run out of vaccine-based slots, we’ll have to stop dating until the next rounds,” Lord said.
All of this actually involves twice as much work: each vaccine recipient must receive two injections – three weeks apart for Moderna vaccine – for the inoculation to be effective. This means that if Flagler’s entire adult population were vaccinated, local officials should be prepared to administer 200,000 injections. This puts today’s event into perspective: it was a very small example of what necessarily awaits us.
Emergency and health officials have to deal with the emergency – and the fact that they ended up taking on much of the vaccination protocols – in addition to their usual responsibilities and ongoing Covid responsibilities.
“We are in a situation where we have to maintain public health services throughout the week, and vaccinations and still community tests, case investigations, contact tracing, knowing that January will be the month of the week. one of the most difficult months for cases. Snyder said. So we do all of these things at the same time. It is therefore a matter of priority. There are a lot of them there. We have 20, 25 different programs directly at the Department of Health. So what we will do is we will maintain the emergency services, example would be prenatal care, or whatever situation emerges, like in our dental clinic. What we will do to make this immunization mission a priority and a responsibility a priority, we could close non-emergency clinics during the day or in the afternoon and then reschedule appointments so that we have staff.
To date, the Flagler County Department of Health has 90 staff, including 56 core staff, with the rest added since the pandemic. The department is looking to hire 10 to 12 more. “We’re just going to reallocate tasks, reassign staff to this immunization effort, just like we did with the community testing at the start, because that’s the priority,” Snyder said.
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