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Wisconsin ranks near the bottom of the country; Deployment criticized by Republicans
State vaccination rates tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention consistently ranked Wisconsin near the bottom for gunfire per 100,000 population. On Sunday, Wisconsin came in 7th from the bottom with about 5.3% of the population of 100,000 with an increase in 5th from the bottom on Friday.
However, state officials and health experts warn that tracking CDC data is not the most accurate metric for states. Health care providers have 72 hours to report administered doses to federal, state, and local agencies; other discrepancies may arise between state and federal reports depending on the time of each update and other factors. For example, the tracker lists Wisconsin as having administered 308,290 shots on Sunday; data on the DHS website – last updated Jan. 21 – reports about 2,000 more than that of the CDC.
Republicans, who have blocked COVID-19 legislation in the legislature for most of 2020, have stepped up criticism of the administration’s deployment in recent weeks. At a press briefing Thursday, Governor Tony Evers defended the state’s response, saying the state was not receiving the necessary number of doses from the federal government.
“I think we’re doing the best we can given the ramifications of vaccines and the number of vaccines,” Evers said, when asked if he was going to change anything in the state process. . “We are going in the right direction, but the bottom line is that we have to have a vaccine to vaccinate.”
Federal government controls state supply
States do not buy the vaccines themselves. When New York Governor Andrew Cuomo sent a letter to Pfizer this week asking him to do just that, it sparked disagreement from the incoming Biden administration.
DHS estimated that the state would need to receive three times its current allocation of doses to reach 80% of the state’s residents vaccinated by June of this year. Of more than 1,200 registered vaccinators in Wisconsin, about half have actually received the vaccine.
But during a press briefing last Thursday, Deputy Secretary Julie Willems Van Dijk said discussions with the federal government indicated that the state could not expect an increase in its some 70,000 weekly doses during at at least three to four weeks. States across the country are pleading with the federal government for more procurement.
“What they want and need most are the doses,” said Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers. The nonprofit group includes managers from public health agencies across the country, providing a forum to share challenges, best practices and lessons learned.
“Part of it was really not knowing from week to week how many doses you are taking,” Hannan said. “And don’t see an increase when you widen.”
Major states have small populations and local deployment programs
West Virginia has consistently found itself in national headlines and at or near the top of CDC immunization tracking after being the only state to refuse the federal pharmacy program to immunize its long-term care population. They completed the vaccinations of their long-term care population early in the deployment after partnering with local pharmacies across the state to plan and administer the vaccines.
More recently, Alaska has also topped the national charts for its deployment, which the state medical officer attributes in part to its higher military, veteran and Indigenous populations. States receive additional allocations for the Ministry of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Indian Health Service – and are tracked as separate entities than the states themselves. In addition, the state has implemented an extensive process to provide vaccines to its hard-to-reach rural populations.
Alaska, West Virginia, North Dakota, Connecticut and South Dakota were the top five states in national rankings on Friday. All except Connecticut are in the bottom ten states in terms of population, nationally.
But experts warn that deployment models used in other states are highly personalized and depend on local relationships and programs that may not be replicable in other states.
“They are rural,” Hannan said. “They have a smaller number of suppliers.” With small populations and closer relationships with their existing health care providers, many top performing states have relied on existing local partnerships to accelerate their deployment.
“West Virginia is a good case study, but I’m not sure because it’s necessarily transferable to other states,” explained Prof Ajay Sethi, director of the master’s program in public health at UW-Madison. “It’s very hard to say that what works in one state will be guaranteed to work in another if we use the same strategy.”
‘It’s a marathon, not a sprint’
Some states initially stepped up in immunization rates due to opening up large groups of people by age, while other states like Wisconsin stuck to the original CDC guidelines recommending prioritizing workers. health and long-term care populations before moving on to the next phase.
While the broader categorizations meant more gun shots, they also resulted in delays for vaccines for healthcare workers and long queues in states like Florida where older people sometimes did. queuing overnight to get vaccinated.
Professor Sethi says the vaccine rollout shouldn’t be judged by its pioneers in the first month.
“We’re kind of just around that first corner if it was a horse race,” he explained. “Some horses come out of the door a bit quickly; this does not guarantee that they will be crowned winners.
Other states have announced their candidates for the next phase earlier than others. Illinois announced on Jan.6 that the state would vaccinate people 65 and older in their next phase, while Wisconsin waited much later in January to do the same. But the announcement of the next phase without the capabilities to start vaccinating this group has caused bottlenecks and confusion, with people trying to schedule appointments for vaccines that are not yet available.
“There’s that initial euphoria that you signed up for the vaccine, you pre-registered,” he explained. “But the devil is in the details. When are you actually going to get the vaccine? “
To some extent, this has also been a factor in Wisconsin in the past few days since they announced eligibility for people aged 65 and over. Health care providers have seen a deluge of inbound calls requesting appointments; Patients now are often asked to wait for their provider to contact them instead once the supply increases. Only about half of Wisconsin’s vaccinators even received doses, according to DHS last week.
“It will take time,” said Willems Van Dijk. “I know that asking for more patience is frankly asking a lot. So today I’m going to ask for something a little different; today we ask for perseverance.
Officials Consider Future Vaccine Candidates For Increased Supply
Health officials are cautiously hoping for the next Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine candidate, which should be ready for review by the United States Food and Drug Administration within weeks.
According to CNN, the vaccine could result in millions of additional vaccine doses as early as March, potentially increasing the available domestic supply.
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