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Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr Rachel Levine spoke to PennLive on Thursday about the effort to vaccinate state residents against COVID-19 and said, “We want to do more and we want to do better.”
In an interview with the PennLive Editorial Board, Levine said she plans to announce new tactics to achieve this soon, including making vaccines available at retail pharmacies and holding immunization clinics, including what she called “mass vaccination clinics”. The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency will be involved, she said.
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Levine further said she would align Pennsylvania’s immunization priorities with new priorities announced by the federal government this week. The federal government advises states to immediately make the vaccine available to all people over 65, as well as people 16 and older with chronic conditions.
This means vaccines could be offered to all Pennsylvania seniors much sooner than it seemed likely at the start of the week, as the state followed a phased approach focused on frontline healthcare workers. and the elderly in nursing homes. The state announced Thursday morning a temporary exemption that will allow people to be vaccinated in pharmacies without a prescription. However, this depends on a sufficient supply of vaccines.
Levine told PennLive Thursday morning that she wasn’t immediately sure when the vaccines would be offered to all Pennsylvanians over 65.
Noting that the federal government recommended doing it on Tuesday, Levine said, “What we’re trying to do is figure out exactly how we’re going to do it, because it’s such a change from what they’re doing. previously recommended.
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Asked when she expects the vaccine to become available to the public, Levine said, “It could be early summer… but let’s say, hopefully, late spring.
Still, Levine pointed out that getting anyone who wants vaccinated is a complicated task and she expects it to take “well before fall” to complete groups such as healthy young adults, college students and others. children.
In the interview with the PennLive editorial board, Levine was pressed on the success of the vaccine rollout in Pennsylvania – based on federal data, the state appears to be lagging behind many others.
According to federal data as of Thursday morning, Pennsylvania has received more than one million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and has distributed about 380,000 of them. Its rate of doses administered, about 3 per 100 people, places it in the middle of the pack among the states. The main state, West Virginia, administered more than twice as many doses, or about 6.2 per 100 people.
Levine said vaccination in Pennsylvania is a complicated process with, for example, Philadelphia leading its own vaccination effort and a federal partnership with CVS and Walgreens to manage vaccinations in long-term care facilities. She said that notification of doses administered could take up to three days. She further said the federal government lists the vaccines as being distributed in Pennsylvania before they arrive, suggesting that the state’s unused dose figure of around 600,000 as of Thursday morning is not that high.
Levine acknowledged that Pennsylvania ranks “in the middle of the pack” in vaccine distribution.
But she also said, “I think all states are pretty much in the same boat.”
She also cited delays during the holidays – the national immunization process began about a week before Christmas.
“But now in the New Year, both in Pennsylvania and across the country, we continue to grow and do a lot better,” she said.
More:
Addressing 11 Common Concerns About COVID-19 Vaccines: Questions & Answers
Worried about getting the COVID-19 vaccine in Pennsylvania? You should be | John baer
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