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Montgomery County officials are calling on the state of Maryland to establish a mass COVID-19 vaccination site in the county.
Montgomery County officials are calling on the state of Maryland to establish a mass COVID-19 vaccination site in the county amid “significant concerns” over how the state is allocating a still extremely limited supply of vaccines.
County health official Dr Travis Gayles, who has expressed concern about the declining share of vaccine doses sent to the county health department for the benefit of other providers such as pharmacies, asked State health officials to consider a mass vaccination site in the county.
“We have sites. Let’s have a conversation about it, ”Gayles said, suggesting the county fairground as an option for a mass vaccination site.
Gayles spoke at a county council hearing on Tuesday at which Maryland Assistant Secretary of Health Jinlene Chan also made an appearance.
A mass vaccination site opened at Six Flags America in neighboring Prince George County on Friday and is in the process of scaling up to 2,000 vaccinations per day. Although day one shots were restricted to residents of Prince George County, the site is now open to all Marylanders – though appointments remain limited.
“It is extremely difficult to expect our residents to go to another jurisdiction and assume they will have access there,” Gayles said.
However, instead of opening a separate mass vaccination site in Montgomery County, Gayles also offered to reserve a certain percentage of appointment slots at Six Flags specifically for residents of Montgomery County.
Three county council members also urged Chan to commit to establishing a mass vaccination site in the county.
“It’s illogical not to have something like this in the state’s largest jurisdiction,” said Nancy Navarro, a council member, who represents District 4.
Chan said the state was ready to consider other mass vaccination sites, but made no promises to council members.
In addition to the Six Flags site in Prince George County, another site opened last week at the Baltimore Convention Center.
Other sites are already planned on the east coast, and in southern and western Maryland.
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Defense of state allowances
During his appearance, Chan defended the distribution of vaccines in Montgomery County, claiming that sending doses of the vaccine to several retail pharmacies and hospitals – which had the effect of reducing doses at the health department county – is to build infrastructure for the time when the limited supply of doses increase dramatically.
Increasing doses at Giant and Safeway pharmacies, as well as county hospitals “is part of our longer-term strategy to begin building that base of immunization capacity statewide,” Chan said.
The state takes a “whole county approach” in deciding where and how much vaccine to distribute – not just to local health departments but also to other providers.
Amid concerns that vaccines are not accessible to the most vulnerable, Chan said the state official took equity concerns into account when choosing which pharmacies to partner with to distribute the vaccines.
“We looked at where COVID-19 impacted communities the most, as well as racial and socio-economic status in specific zip codes and the like, and are using that to guide some of the initial selections,” Chan said, adding : “What we are trying to create several levels of access points for vaccination. “
But Gayles said increasing doses sent to other providers at the expense of county-controlled doses is of concern because, he said, data shows local health departments have a better track record than retail pharmacies to get vaccinated in people’s arms.
This week, the county saw its supply of vaccine doses increase from 5,500 to 4,500.
Last week, the county received more than 7,000 first doses of the vaccine in a matter of weeks.
Is Montgomery Co. Getting Its Fair Share?
Council members have pressed Chan on the county’s blanket vaccine dose allocation, arguing that it doesn’t look like Montgomery County is getting its fair share.
Council President Tom Hucker pointed to the state’s own data which showed, he said, that the state’s five largest jurisdictions – Montgomery, Prince George, Baltimore and Anne Arundel and Baltimore City – all receive the fewest doses per capita.
Five of the state’s smallest counties – Kent, Somerset, Garrett, Talbot and Caroline counties – receive the most doses per capita.
“It would be a big deal if we were just talking about something like transportation dollars, but that’s unacceptable given that we’re talking about vaccines,” Hucker said.
Chan said the per capita disparity stems from the early days of the vaccination effort late last year. The state has set a “floor” of 300 doses per week due to limited supply.
“It appeared proportionately, per capita, to be larger” for smaller counties, she admitted, but added that the state was continuing “to evolve this process.”
No single registration site, says state
State health officials have also been urged to create a one-stop statewide registration for an appointment for a vaccine in Maryland.
At-Large board member Evan Glass said he had heard of county residents enrolling at every hospital and pharmacy, desperately seeking an open appointment.
“Why doesn’t the state take a more centralized, one-stop-shop approach to registration where people can enter all their information and then be assigned to one of the vaccine providers in their area? ” He asked.
Heather Shek, deputy director of the Office of Government Affairs at the Maryland Department of Health, said she recognizes Marylanders’ frustration with not accessing appointments. But she said only four other states use a centralized system to schedule vaccinations.
“So I think this notion that Maryland is different and that we should move towards this system is a little misinformed because not many other states are doing it,” Shek said. “We have looked at this approach and our health care system is not designed for a centralized system.
Shek said the four states using a centralized system are Oklahoma, New Hampshire, New Mexico and West Virginia – the latter of which has been praised for its rapid vaccination rate.
Having multiple ways to schedule an appointment, each managed by a separate vendor “allows for agility and scheduling changes,” Shek said.
“There is no single point of failure,” she added. “When we have multiple options for people to sign up, it prevents a major bottleneck or system failure from occurring.”
In the end, Shek said the state system was working as vaccinations were increasing – from about 2,000 injections given at the start of the effort to an average of over 22,000 per day currently.
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