Maryland’s path shows challenges in the push to vaccinate everyone
UPPER MARLBORO, Md. — The path to quickly vaccinating the nation’s 250 million adults will be paved with pharmacy chains, hospitals and hulking stadiums where uniformed troops help inoculate thousands of people a day.
But it also will rely on the recreation center at the First Baptist Church of Glenarden, along with tiny storefront service organizations and vaccine-stocked vans that scour neighborhoods for the unprotected.
Maryland offers a microcosm of the issues states face as they rush to open enough vaccination sites to meet President Joe Biden’s goal of making every adult eligible for COVID-19 shots by May 1.
The state has encountered nearly all the geographic, demographic and human behavioral challenges that come with a public health task of this scale: poor urban neighborhoods where many lack access to regular care, wealthy Washington suburbs whose residents have proved adept at vacuuming up shots meant for other ZIP codes, isolated rural areas and a sign-up system that has so vexed residents that vaccine hunting has become for many a part-time job.
“We are going to push, but we’re also going to have to pull,” said Dennis Schrader, the state’s acting health secretary, describing Maryland’s plan to not only ramp up capacity at megasites and pharmacies but also to “pull people in” with smaller, more targeted efforts.
Nearly every state now finds itself in a perilous race between vaccinating residents and succumbing to an onerous wave of cases fueled partly by the emergence of new coronavirus variants. As states rush to expand eligibility for the shot, many also are loosening rules on dining, gathering and masks.
It will take extensive group efforts across competing interests to push states closer to herd immunity. Efforts to track who’s getting vaccinated and where will become all the more important so health officials can quickly identify who’s being left behind and shift their strategies and resources accordingly.
In Maryland, the pent-up demand for the vaccine is huge. Only people 65 and older, some types of essential workers and a few other narrow categories were eligible until late March, leaving two-thirds of the population unprotected.
On Tuesday, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan opened up vaccination to all who are 16 and older and have certain medical conditions. By April 27, everyone 16 and older will be eligible regardless of medical status.
But while Hogan has faced criticism from local leaders about the state’s middle-of-theroad pace and for not doing enough to reach Black and Latino residents — who make up more than 40 percent of the state’s population but only 28 percent of those who have received at least one shot — some people now worry that the state is speeding up too quickly.
The Hogan administration is planning to open four more mass vaccination sites by the end of April, bringing the total to 12, and it has 320 pharmacies administering shots. A federally operated site will open at a suburban metro station next week.
Hogan’s goal is to administer 100,000 shots per day by May, up from an average of 57,000 a day now.
The state has started adding primary care doctors to the effort, with the goal of having 400 practices administering shots by May. It’s also working with local health departments and community partners, particularly churches, to open “popup” vaccination sites aimed at populations that might be geographically or socially isolated, or distrustful of government and large institutions.
Pastor John Jenkins at the First Baptist Church of Glenarden understood the role his church could play as he drove down a main drag in Prince George’s County — a majority-Black area that has had high COVID infection rates but low inoculation rates — past the snaking line of cars leading to a mass vaccination site at the Six Flags amusement park.
“The people in those cars didn’t look like people in the county,” Jenkins said. “The people in this community could not get appointments.”