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Since the end of January, given the limited supply of vaccine doses, clinics run by the county have been giving priority to residents aged 75 and over for vaccine appointments.
Officials in Montgomery County, Md., Say they continue to fight rumors and misinformation about who can get a COVID-19 vaccine in the county and the inappropriate sharing of erased date links work to vaccinate the county’s most vulnerable residents.
Since the end of January, given the limited supply of vaccine doses, clinics run by the county have given priority to residents aged 75 and over for vaccine appointments.
But reports on social media said large groups of people showed up for the shot at one of the county clinics at Richard Montgomery High School on Thursday morning, including teachers and people under 75 years old.
This was apparently the result of poorly shared appointment links and misinformation that teachers and walk-ins were being taken to the site, according to health worker Dr Travis Gayles.
“There was apparently a significant number of people who showed up on one of our sites today – and weren’t happy when they were turned down,” Gayles said in an online briefing with journalists.
The county has made it clear in recent weeks that people seeking to get vaccinated at a county-run clinic must pre-register with the county and must be 75 years of age or older, Gayles said.
Part of the problem is that once residents pre-register and receive links to book appointments, those links are shared with others – and, in some cases, widely shared.
Gayles said he heard from officials in other counties that links appear on mailing lists and group mailing lists, creating a “free for all” instead of the tidy process that local health departments are aiming for.
County manager Marc Elrich said link sharing remains an issue. It “creates a mess of who can actually get the vaccine,” he said – and it prevents people 75 and over from getting appointments “because those appointments have been made. by someone else.
The appointment links are generated by a state-run site known as PrepMod, which the county is required to use by the state. Even though the state-run system asks users to indicate their age, it doesn’t kick them out if they are not 75 or older.
Gayles staff, meanwhile, cannot select all registrants under the age of 75, as healthcare workers are also eligible for vaccination. “We’re trying to sort it out,” Gayles said.
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County officials have been pushing the state for a software fix to the link sharing problem for weeks, and at least one fix is underway. The system is being adjusted so that each link can only be used by one person.
In the meantime, Gayles and other county officials are urging residents to be responsible: If you’re not 75 or older, don’t book a date at a county-run site, even if someone shares. a link with you.
“We’ve been very clear on who is eligible and who we prioritize at different sites,” Gayles said. “And if you know you don’t meet these criteria and still sign up, how can you be ultimately upset when you show up to the place where we remind you that you are not eligible to receive this?” vaccine? And, in effect, you’re creating a system where you make an appointment with someone who meets the criteria, which slows down the advancement process. “
Even though the state changed the eligibility guidelines last month to include people aged 65 and older, the county is not receiving enough doses from the state to make more widespread vaccinations, Elrich said.
Last week, the county health department received about 5,500 initial doses for distribution. This week, the county received about 4,500 doses.
Elrich said the county continues to prioritize residents 75 and older because this group has the highest death rate. “They were the top priority for a reason,” Elrich said.
So far, over a period of about two and a half weeks, about 27,000 county residents aged 75 and over have received doses of the vaccine, according to county data. But that’s just over a third of the county’s total population aged 75 and over.
If the doses provided to the county do not increase, Elrich said it would take another 10 weeks to complete the vaccination of the county’s oldest residents.
Adding to the confusion is the growing number of private providers, such as hospitals and pharmacies, who receive doses of vaccine and who can immunize 65 to 74 year olds, as well as teachers. (In total, about 10,000 doses per week are for these other providers, county officials said.)
If these other providers, such as hospitals and pharmacies, committed to setting aside half of their allowances to specifically target those 75 and over, Elrich said it would take about half the time to complete the immunization of every 75 eligible residents – approximately five weeks.
“It will be a very long wait for people if we are to rely on the amount of doses the county itself is receiving,” he added.
For now, given the lower number of vaccine doses – and there are approximately 300,000 eligible Montgomery County residents as part of the first phase of vaccine deployment – providing doses to a group rather than to another is a zero sum game.
“It’s the problem of making everyone eligible when the offer is as low as it is,” Elrich said. “We would be delighted to make these vaccines eligible for everyone. We just don’t have the means to do it. “
Earl Stoddard, Director of Homeland Security and County Emergency Management: “As much as we hear from others – teachers wanting to get vaccinated, postal workers, grocery store workers – we hear just as much from us. people over the age of 75 who haven’t had a chance yet and are desperate to get one too. And so, every appointment made by a teacher is an appointment that a 75-year-old does not get.
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