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Health officials on Tuesday informed Montgomery County Council of the county’s vaccination plan so far.
A lawmaker in Montgomery County, Maryland, is pushing the county to begin immunizing seniors, who are newly eligible for COVID-19 vaccines under expedited state guidelines, starting this week.
But county health officials say they are still working to vaccinate thousands of health workers and the state is not providing enough doses of the vaccine to start injecting large numbers of the vaccine into the arms of people aged 75 and over so soon. .
As part of phase 1b of the Maryland Coronavirus Vaccination Plan, these seniors were eligible to receive the vaccines starting Monday. Other jurisdictions, including neighboring Prince George County, are moving forward with vaccines for people aged 75 and older.
Speaking at a Montgomery County council hearing on Tuesday, At-Large council member Hans Riemer lobbied to expand vaccinations in line with state guidelines, and said the elderly County of Montgomery “need to feel like a priority.”
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Earl Stoddard, director of the county’s office of emergency management and homeland security, said the county still had between 15,000 and 20,000 health workers, such as dentists and pharmacists, to be vaccinated.
Moving the elderly to the front row would also put the county in a dilemma.
“If we’re going to vaccinate people aged 75 this week, it will essentially be… take doses from healthcare workers and give them to people aged 75 and over,” Stoddard told council members at the hearing. Tuesday. “This is the kind of choice we will have to make.”
The county’s vaccination efforts will also be the subject of a virtual room discussion Tuesday at 7 p.m. hosted by Montgomery County Council.
Low supply, exorbitant demand
Overall, the supply of COVID-19 vaccines provided by Maryland is extremely limited. The county’s allocation for this week totaled just 7,300 first doses of the vaccine, officials told council members.
Demand, on the other hand, is very high.
As a first step towards phase 1b vaccinations, Montgomery County has authorized residents register to pre-register for the next phase of vaccination starting on Friday.
As of Monday, some 53,000 people had signed up to pre-register for phase 1b vaccinations, said Dr Raymond Crowel, director of the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services.
Still, Riemer has been pushing for older people to start being able to make vaccine appointments, even if these are weeks into the future.
“There is so much anxiety there because the elderly hear they can get the vaccine in Virginia, they can get the shot in Washington DC, they can get the shot in Prince George County,” he said. Riemer said. “But they can’t get the vaccine in Montgomery County, and it’s untenable. We have to be able to offer that.
No vaccine left on the shelves
Health officials said they were depleting their supply of state-provided vaccines every week and there were no more doses left on the shelves. In fact, in terms of the number of doses administered, the county leads the state.
Health worker Dr Travis Gayles said Montgomery County routinely distributes all doses of the vaccine it receives from the state each week. “We have expelled all the vaccines distributed… We don’t have any more,” he added.
Officials said the governor’s announcement last week to move to phase 1b this week and 1c next week “created a massive expectation that there is something available to people that there is. has none, ”Stoddard said, pointing to the limited supplies provided by the state.
Some council members said they even heard of Montgomery County residents aged 75 and over who had made appointments in neighboring Prince George County, using the county’s digital sign-up sheet.
Prince George County announced on Monday that starting February 9, it would limit appointments for the Phase 1b vaccine to people who live and work in its county only.
Montgomery County officials said they were working on ways to expand the supply, including leveraging doses from hospitals – which receive their doses directly from the federal government – for public use, or to vaccinate people. other types of health workers still waiting to be vaccinated.
At Tuesday’s hearing, council members questioned how the state distributes the vaccines it receives from the federal government to the various counties.
Evan Glass, a member of the At-Large Council, called the state’s decision-making process “confusing.”
“I’m trying to understand how the state is fairly and equitably distributing the vaccine shortage we have and why here in Montgomery County with a population of almost 1.1 million, our residents don’t. get no more, ”Glass said.
But, he added, “we are at the mercy of the state, and the state is at the mercy of the federal government.”
Phase 1c next week is also likely delayed
Overall, the limited supply is also likely to delay the county’s move to other levels in phase 1b, such as teachers, as well as phase 1c, which includes people aged 65 and over. . According to state guidelines, Phase 1c is scheduled to begin on January 25.
Overall, the state receives a total of approximately 72,000 doses of vaccine per week from the federal government, which is then distributed among the counties.
On its own, Montgomery County estimates that there are between 100,000 and 140,000 of its residents to be vaccinated as part of Phase 1b, which has yet to begin.
“So if the state of Maryland gave us every dose that the state has received, it would take us at least two weeks to vaccinate everything that is in 1b before we can move on to 1c,” Stoddard said.
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