Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Vaccine drive complicated by 2-dose juggling act
The U.S. has entered a tricky phase of the COVID-19 vaccination effort as providers try to ramp up the number of people getting first shots while also ensuring a growing number of others get second doses just when millions more Americans are becoming eligible to receive vaccines.
The need to give each person two doses a few weeks apart vastly complicates the country’s biggestever vaccination campaign. And persistent uncertainty about future vaccine supplies fuels worries that some people will not be able to get their second shots in time.
In some cases, local health departments and providers have said they must temporarily curb or even cancel appointments for first doses to ensure there are enough second doses for people who need them.
Nola Rudolph said she struggled to book appointments for her 71-year-old father and 68-year-old mother, who live in rural upstate New York. Everywhere she looked within driving distance was booked.
“Seeing they were eligible, I was elated,” she said. “Seeing they were in a dead zone, I went from very hopeful to hopeless again.”
She was able to arrange a second dose for her father but has not yet been able to find a slot for her mother. “It’s like going around in a circle.”
For about the past month, the U.S. has administered an average of 900,000 first doses each day, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by The Associated Press. Now many of those people are due for second doses, and the average number of Americans getting second shots hit an all-time high Tuesday — 539,000 per day over the past week.
The increasing demand for second doses comes as the Biden administration is taking steps to boost the supply of doses.
White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients announced Tuesday that states will see their allocation of doses rise to 11 million per week beginning next week, up more than 2 million weekly doses since President Joe Biden took office.
Since the vaccine was authorized in late December, about 33 million people in the U.S. have received shots.
“It’s really important and critical to recognize that there are still not enough doses to go around,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
So far, about 10% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose of the vaccine. About 3% has received both doses, the AP analysis showed.
Across Los Angeles County, health officials say limited supplies mean the majority of vaccinations this week will be for second doses. In the state’s Napa County, some appointments for first doses were canceled last week to ensure there would be enough for second doses.
“We’re getting a lot of the questions from community members asking, ‘Is my second dose in jeopardy?’ And right now, we don’t have an answer because it’s all dependent on the inventory that comes in from the state,” said Alfredo Pedroza, a county supervisor.
Both COVID-19 vaccines being distributed in the U.S. require two shots a few weeks apart to maximize protection. For Pfizer, the doses are supposed to be three weeks apart. For Moderna, it’s four weeks. But if needed, the booster be delayed for up to six weeks, according to the CDC, which updated its guidance late last month.
State and local health officials now emphasize that extended time frame in public messaging to alleviate worries that people might not get their second shots on time.
Federal officials have said they are confident there will be enough doses to ensure people get their second shots.
Fueling the concerns in some places is the difficulty of booking the second dose. Although many places schedule the booster when the first shot is given, others ask people to schedule them later on because of logistical issues.
Tanny O’Haley is 64 and has Parkinson’s, but he isn’t eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine in Los Angeles County, where he lives. He was able to get a first dose when he accompanied his 69-year-old wife to her vaccination because the site had a leftover shot.
O’Haley has not been able to schedule his second dose despite numerous calls to local officials and the county health department. He plans to try again when he brings his wife to her second appointment on Wednesday.
“The whole experience was pretty awful,” O’Haley said.
In New Hampshire, officials are ditching the current scheduling system after thousands of people struggled to book their boosters within the recommended time — with some being given appointments for two months later. People will now get appointments for their second shots when they get their first.
New Hampshire is one of several local jurisdictions that had signed up to use the CDC’s Vaccine Administration Management System, or VAMS.
At the Las Vegas Convention Center in Nevada, another type of scheduling problem popped up last week when the site opened as a clinic dedicated only to second doses. When appointments were made available online, people eager for their first doses snapped up slots.
“We had enough vaccine — we just need to control the crowd somehow,” said JoAnn Rupiper of the Southern Nevada Health District.
A shot in the arm: Never did those words sound so good. We commonly use this colloquialism to describe something that gives us hope, encouragement or energy. In all my years of using this phrase, it was always meant in the figurative sense. Not once did I use it to imply an actual shot. A needle. An injection. Into the arm. My arm. Not once. Until now.
It has been nearly a year since COVID-19 infiltrated our lives, since it derailed our habits and our comings and goings. It’s been a year since we were forced to distance ourselves from those we love. I am relatively sure none of us considered that it would last as long as it has and would change our world as much as it did.
And for so long, we felt hopeless. Until now. It comes down to a shot in the arm. That shot is delivering hope, and perhaps, a glimpse at the proverbial light at the end of this long, dark tunnel.
It is interesting to me to note that the actual shot in the arm has truly brought me joy, encouragement and energy. While I do not suffer from trypanophobia (fear of needles), I am also not one who loves getting injections. However, the day I received my first shot in the arm was one of the happiest and most exciting days in recent history. And the second was even more so.
While I know not everyone has been able to get their vaccines yet, I implore you, do not give up trying. There are more and more places offering these vaccines; don’t just assume you won’t be able to find one. Keep trying, never give up. Because the shot in the arm that comes from this shot in the arm is well worth the trouble.
Perhaps we should thank Francis Rynd who, back in the mid 1800s, made the first successful injection of medicine into an arm using a steel hypodermic needle. From that time, the process was improved upon and honed by many brilliant minds, and for the next century, many drugs were regularly injected. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that the glass syringe was mass produced by the Chance Brothers’ Birmingham Glass Works. And the rest is history.
However, the term shot in the arm was not used colloquially for much later, when in the early 1900s, a newspaper in Maine used it to illustrate a point in an article.
According to an article posted online at https:// medium.com/science-soul by Melissa Gouty, the term dates back to 1916, when the Lewistown Evening Journal was quoted as saying, “The vets can give politics a shot in the arm, and the political leaders realize it ...”
Apparently, this phrase caught on and has been used and likely overused for many years. But in 2021, it takes on a whole new meaning. This year we go back to our roots and when we talk about a shot in the arm, we mean it, wholeheartedly and literally.
I remain in awe of the vaccine companies and the many researchers and scientists who worked tirelessly to bring us a shot in the arm so quickly. And I salute all the healthcare workers who are working tirelessly to actually deliver our shot in the arm. I truly hope that anyone reading this has had the shot in the arm or is getting one soon. That will indeed get us all closer to the end of that tunnel.
When the husband of a close friend died of COVID-19, Theresa Adams felt helpless.
The man’s death in April was among the first identified with the coronavirus in Berks County, said Adams, a retired nurse.
“It was very distressing,” she said. “I just tried to think of something I could do.”
With another friend’s encouragement, Adams, 70, of Exeter Township called the Reading Hospital to volunteer and was asked if she could sew masks. Though she agreed, she wasn’t sure she was up to the task. Adams had packed away her sewing machine about a decade earlier while earning a doctoral degree at Alvernia University, and it had stayed in the closet.
“I wasn’t sure I would remember how to sew,” she said, noting she started by buying a kit for 10 masks at a local craft store.
It wasn’t long before she had a system in place for churning out hundreds of two-layer, reversible masks each day. She works assembly-line style, first cutting the bolts of donated and hospital-supplied material into manageable sections for washing, drying and ironing. She cuts the mask pieces using a template made by her husband, retired radio personality Charlie Adams.