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Echoing the concerns of health professionals in the area, the director of the Allegheny County health department said he was not ready to welcome the expansion of the distribution of the covid-19 vaccine in Pennsylvania .
“I would be delighted to tell you that we can vaccinate all of you who now meet these expanded criteria today,” Dr Debra Bogen said at a press conference on Wednesday. “But the reality is that the current vaccine supply makes this impractical at the moment.”
State officials announced on Tuesday that Phase 1A vaccinations will be extended to include people over 65 and those aged 16 to 64 with certain health conditions including cancer, kidney disease , COPD, and other conditions that put them at increased risk for covid-19. The expansion means there are now 4 million people statewide who are eligible for the vaccine.
But the health department only learned of the change yesterday, Bogen said, and as it stands, the county has received less than 20,000 doses per week since the deployment began. She said Allegheny County had many vaccine suppliers eager to help get the doses delivered as quickly as possible, but there simply wasn’t enough for everyone.
The county continues to focus on health workers and only schedule vaccine appointments by invitation. Bogen said the health department will use its limited vaccine on workers that other vendors may miss, in an effort to ensure fairness and equity in vaccine distribution.
“If you use a link to the site that has been shared with you by your friends or family, please be aware that you are making an appointment with a health worker and delaying our ability to open up vaccines to a wider audience,” she declared.
The health department’s update comes on the same day as a memo signed by the chief medical officers of several state health systems about the covid-19 vaccine. Doctors say there aren’t enough vaccines available yet for everyone who has been found eligible for Phase 1A of Pennsylvania’s vaccination plan.
Bogen said residents can use a new state Department of Health quiz to determine vaccine eligibility and use an online map to find a vaccine supplier. She noted that supply is limited and demand is high, so it will be difficult to plan anything at this time. Additionally, there is no central vaccine registration site for the county or for Pennsylvania as a whole, which places most of the planning responsibility on the individual clinics and hospital. Bogen said the health department was working on a vaccine registration system at sites run by the county.
Meanwhile, Bogen said the county’s covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths have started to level off, dropping much lower than expected after the winter recess. The county’s positivity rate declined last week from 11.5% to 9.3%, and fewer people died in January than at this time last month.
Bogen attributes the lower-than-expected numbers to the state’s temporary mitigation measures in the final weeks of 2020, which suspended indoor meals and extracurricular activities and high school sports, among other restrictions.
“We saw it this summer, we saw it at the start of the pandemic,” Bogen said. “You’ve issued strong mitigation orders, you’re seeing a plateau in cases in about two weeks, and a slow, steady decline. This is exactly what we saw, once again.
She urged residents of the county to remain vigilant, however, especially amid news of a shortage of hospital resources in places like Los Angeles and the emergence of two new strains of the virus that are known to be more transmissible.
“The vaccine is very exciting, but we have a long way to go,” she said.
Teghan Simonton is a staff writer for Tribune-Review. You can contact Teghan at 724-226-4680, [email protected] or via Twitter .
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Allegheny | Coronavirus | Local | Best Stories
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