Pa.’s best shot at beating COVID is local, not regional

It’d be great if in six weeks we could look back at this editorial and say “Wow, this opinion didn’t age well.”

That’s the outcome we’re rooting for, because it’d mean that Pennsylvania’s revamped strategy for getting its population vaccinated against COVID-19 catapulted injection rates through the ceiling, saved lives, silenced critics of the commonwealth’s initial vaccine rollout, and allowed the Keystone State to come from behind and hit President Biden’s goal that all adults will be eligible to get the vaccine by May 1.

But, for now, we don’t see the wisdom of Pennsylvania’s pivot to a new strategy just as the old one finally seemed to be sorting itself out ahead of an expected boost in vaccine supply.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health’s plan no longer includes hundreds of previously authorized vaccine providers that were eliminated in the interest of sending more doses to ones officials believe are operating more efficiently.

The move sliced the total number of state vaccine providers from over 1,000 to roughly 300 and prompted the Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians, Pennsylvania Osteopathic Medical Society and the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American College of Physicians to issue a joint statement lamenting the Wolf administration’s “woeful mistake” of cutting primary care physicians out of the process.

The move, they said, demonstrated “a lack of understanding in the way most Pennsylvanians receive their health care”. Also out of the mix are some of the smaller pharmacy chains and even some hospitals that had been giving out shots.

We believe there is much to be said for residents being able to go to their trusted local pharmacies or doctor’s offices for the vaccine. That familiarity is important, particularly to elderly patients who are more likely to develop life-threatening complications due to COVID.

We also worry that the elimination of so many sites will further hinder access to the vaccine in underserved communities.

In January, our board acknowledged that the vaccine supply was inadequate but also criticized Pennsylvania’s decentralized approach to getting shots into arms that, we believe, led to procedural inconsistencies and a frustrating sign-up process that had residents scouring the internet for providers and putting themselves on upwards of a dozen waiting lists.

We still maintain the state should have valued residents’ time and effort by providing a more-centralized registration (and de-registration) process, but many of those complaints have receded now as most citizens who are eligible for the vaccine have moved beyond that sign-up phase. So we’re not sure why the state is changing its tack now, particularly if officials are right that an influx of vaccines is about to arrive.

Perhaps most-troubling is the health department’s plan to partner with the federal government to create 27 regional mass vaccination sites across Pennsylvania where the Johnson & Johnson one-dose vaccine would be administered.

We don’t object to bringing more sites online, but some county leaders, particularly in the Philadelphia suburbs, are opposed to the regional sites because they believe the move will come at the expense of local vaccination operations.

That sentiment generated an, in our view, unnecessarily harsh rebuke from health department officials who, in a series of emails, told county leaders their objections were gumming up the works.

“The Commonwealth has asked only one thing of county leaders to bring this life-saving vaccine to their residents: pick a location,” the state said. “It appears that some local leaders have chosen to bemoan even this responsibility, and are instead wasting precious time that could be used to ensure their residents benefit from the mass vaccination site’s immediate success.”

Health department spokesman Barry Ciccocioppo has also argued that the regional sites would not be diverting any vaccination doses away from the local providers, which would continue to offer the Moderna and Pfizer two-dose vaccinations.

We think that completely misses the point the counties are trying to make. They’re saying — and we agree with them — that the state should eliminate the regional sites and, instead, send all of those Johnson & Johnson doses to the counties for distribution. That would be a huge shot in the arm for the local providers, where so many residents have already signed up and are sitting on waiting lists.

Furthermore, these countylevel sites do not pose the sort of transportation and logistical hurdles that come with having two regional sites for four densely populated suburban counties. We fear eligible residents, particularly senior citizens and members of underserved communities, won’t put themselves on another waiting list for a far-off site they have no way to get to.

Time could prove us wrong. But, on this Sunday, we believe the state ought to direct every available dose of vaccine through the existing infrastructure — like the county health departments (for those lucky enough to have one, unlike Delaware County) — to sites that are already up and running in our local communities.