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The North Carolina Secretary of Health and Human Services apologized Monday afternoon in an appeal with county hospitals and health departments for changes in the calculation of the COVID vaccine distribution. 19 which has seen some struggle to balance a decrease in supply with an increase in demand.
Dr Mandy Cohen proposed that instead of a weekly allowance to counties that leaves them unable to plan far in advance, the state would guarantee a minimum base allowance each week for the next 3 weeks.
“Three weeks is what we feel comfortable with for sure,” she said.
The call came after local hospitals and health departments were forced to cancel or delay thousands of appointments for the COVID-19 vaccine statewide after a lower than expected allowance.
Instead, some of the supply that counties and hospitals should have on hand in the coming weeks will instead be diverted to at least one mass vaccination event that the state hopes will speed up the process of getting shots. fire.
This event, from Friday to Sunday in Charlotte at Bank of America Stadium, could reach up to 20,000 people.
But it comes at a cost: supplying hospitals and health services that the state had just said to speed up its own vaccination efforts.
Cohen said vaccination operations were facing a double whammy this week. The state has in recent weeks called on hospitals and health departments to speed up and reduce the backlog of doses so that the federal government does not punish the state by reducing future shipments. But the new pace did not mean the state would receive more than the first roughly 120,000 doses it received each week.
“I apologize for not being clearer,” Cohen said on the afternoon call. “I own it and I apologize. It has put you all in a difficult and difficult position.”
The state communicates with the allocation numbers at the end of each week, and by the weekend it was clear that hospitals and health departments would receive fewer vaccines than they had planned. On its own, Cone Health, which serves the Greensboro area, said it would cancel 10,400 first-dose appointments.
Appointments for the second dose will not be affected, depending on the system.
Local health department officials wrote to Cohen on Sunday, saying they would be forced to call an unknown number of people, most of them over the age of 65, to cancel appointments.
“This after (the local health services) have done exactly what they are asked to do: schedule appointments, engage with individuals and bring them into future niches,” said Association leaders. from the local health directors of the NC in their letter.
“Because the doses have been diverted, grandmothers and grandfathers who had dates in rural North Carolina are now waiting,” the letter said. “Healthcare workers who had appointments where they serve patients are now waiting.
The state hospital association expressed similar frustrations, stating in its own letter to Governor Roy Cooper that the state needs a better distribution plan and that hospitals need more contributions, with less surprises.
“Hospitals have also rotated repeatedly on short notice to accommodate various directives and urgent orders from heads of state and federal, usually without prior consultation for a clear contribution or measures of success,” the letter said. “We can adapt on the fly, and we do, but it’s time for the state to take action now to coordinate a better plan and a better way forward for vaccine deployment.
State officials acknowledged the frustrations and said they were trying to speed up the process, but supply remains limited. Cohen and other senior officials in the state’s immunization effort spent about an hour on Monday’s conference call, outlining the new plan, asking for comment and promising better communication.
Kody Kinsley, DHHS deputy secretary focused on COVID-19 response, said local suppliers could expect basic information tomorrow on how much vaccine to expect over the next three weeks. Cohen said the state would take 84,000 doses of the state’s planned weekly allowances and distribute them among counties by population, then distribute that among providers in each county.
“This means that not all providers will be able to get the vaccine,” she said. “Numbers don’t work for everyone.”
The remaining 36,000 doses the state receives each week will be used to “scale up” organizations that can help reach marginalized communities, including rural and minority communities that are generally underserved, Cohen said.
Once local operations receive their shipments, they will have five to six days to put all those doses up to speed, Cohen said. Demand will continue to far exceed supply, she said.
“We’re not going to have enough vaccines, I don’t believe, for a while,” Cohen said. “But we’ll get there. We will work on it together. I apologize again.”
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