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SUN CITY, Arizona – The need for a Covid-19 vaccine is as urgent in Arizona as it is anywhere else. Figures show that the coronavirus is spreading faster here than in almost any other state, and Arizona is home to large numbers of seniors who tend to be at a higher risk of dying if they contract the virus.
But that doesn’t mean vaccine doses are flying off the shelves. Instead, 4 out of 5 doses that arrived in Arizona earlier this week had not been used, while waiting for someone to be qualified to give the injections.
The halt to the rollout sparked anger and disappointment across the country, even as officials said there was still plenty of time to ramp up the pace of vaccinations before they started for the general public.
At least in Arizona, one of the reasons for the slow pace was frustratingly simple: Years of belt tightening and neglect of national and local health budgets mean there isn’t enough money. people trained to administer vaccinations, current and former government officials said.
“In our state, it’s a skeleton crew by design,” said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association and former director of the state’s department of health services. He said the desire for low taxes and a smaller government returns to bite residents of the state, which has a long history of conservative politics.
Maricopa County, the fourth most populous county in the United States with 4.5 million people, has received about 133,000 doses of the vaccine for its 125,000 frontline health workers. But during that week, only about 44,000 people had been vaccinated initially.
The snags are affecting a relatively small number of people eligible for vaccination now, so the impact may not be long lasting. But they raise questions about the wider rollout that’s yet to come, and they risk undermining public confidence in the country’s ability to deliver injections quickly, especially after testing has been delayed throughout the year. pandemic.
The task of vaccinating the public has fallen to the same county health departments and hospitals that have been working under pressure from the pandemic for 10 months. And there is only a limited number of workers to do.
“It’s easy to say that you should have 123,000 people in a week, but we’re also talking about the fact that these are the people who are trying to serve these hospitals, and those people who administer the vaccines also need to be able to provide medical care. a vaccine, ”said Marcy Flanagan, executive director of the Maricopa County Public Health Department.
Maricopa County has set up five locations, or “pods,” in county parking lots to administer the injections. As of Wednesday, the five sites treated around 7,000 people.
Flanagan said she expects to be ready to act faster when the state and county move to the second group on the priority list, known as 1B. Statewide, 650 locations administer vaccines during Phase 1A for frontline healthcare workers and long-term care residents, but these are not the large-scale sites that authorities plan to set up in the coming weeks.
Delays in scheduling appointments frustrated some people in Phase 1A. A health care worker in Arizona shared a copy of an email she received on December 21 saying she had been “confirmed eligible to receive a vaccination in this phase”, but she has nothing left. heard until a week later.
The worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it is a sensitive issue at her workplace, said she was not given a reason for the delay, but ultimately had an injection.
There is a separate process involving private pharmacy chains for long-term care facilities and nursing homes, and those vaccinations haven’t always been quick either. At the Beatitudes Campus in Phoenix, a senior campus with 700 residents, only 38 residents and staff received doses on the first day of vaccination this week; technicians planned to return the next day to continue administering doses.
Delays and obstacles have been reported in other states, and Trump administration officials this week acknowledged their disappointment with the deployment. They said Christmas and other holidays had caused delays, as had snowstorms and problems with storing vaccine doses at required temperatures.
“There really needs to be a lot more effort, in the sense of resources for the local population,” Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s senior infectious disease specialist, said Thursday, “TODAY”. “We need to support local groups, states and cities to help them accomplish this task.”
Fauci said the federal government should provide more resources to states and localities, rather than taking full responsibility for the effort. Congress only recently approved $ 8.8 billion for vaccine distribution.
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Arizona could use the aid. The state received more than 314,000 doses of the vaccine in December, but had only administered about 57,000, or 18%, as of Tuesday.
“In our state, there just aren’t the staff to do almost anything,” said Humble, of the Arizona Public Health Association, a membership group for people who work in public health. “They are not doing a good job now because they are so understaffed.”
At the same time, the pandemic is worsening locally. The number of people hospitalized for Covid-19 in Arizona is at an all time high, and intensive care units were 93% full on Wednesday, also a record.
Dr Cara Christ, director of the State Department of Health Services, said it would be a “monumental task” to immunize the entire population of the state over the next few months. “It will appear to be moving very slowly,” she said. “Everyone understands this as we go along.”
Arizona’s 15 counties are responsible for distributing and administering vaccine doses, but the state could step in. Christ said she would like to get more “consistent information” from residents.
“I think the local health services need to have a say in where these doses go. But what we are finding is that it makes it difficult for Arizonans to know where to get vaccinated, ”she said.
Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, issued an executive order Wednesday authorizing the Department of Health Services to “take possession of any vaccine allowance and reallocate it to provide statewide coverage” for distribution and faster administration.
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An unknown factor is the number of people eligible for phase 1A who refuse to be vaccinated. At a fire station in Maricopa County, half of the firefighters were forgoing immediate immunizations, said one person who spoke on condition of anonymity. Local officials said they would know more next week when they see how many people have declined dates.
Private hospitals and health care providers have added resources. Banner Health, a large Phoenix-based medical network, has launched a website with information for people who want to get vaccinated, and Becky Armendariz, a spokesperson, said it has nearly 3,000 appointment slots. -vous per day, with eligibility determined by state and county guidelines.
Sonia Singh, spokesperson for the Maricopa County Public Health Department, said those administering the vaccines try to do two things at once: run phase 1A for frontline health workers and plan for phase 1B much larger, which in Arizona is going to include anyone aged 75 or over, as well as essential workers.
“We wish the vaccine was something that we could just ship to people’s homes, but this is the time when we need people to take a deep breath,” Singh said. “Be patient with the process. When it is your turn, you will know it is your turn.”
Vaughn Hillyard reported from Sun City. David Ingram reported from San Francisco.
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