New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Lining up for a (spare) shot in the arm
People younger than 55, ineligible for a COVID-19 vaccine until at least Friday, have been lining up outside health clinics, hoping vaccinators will be looking for someone to take a spare dose left over at the end of the day.
Clinics say they have made limited use of waiting lists of people seeking an appointment, but it’s difficult to call someone in when there are no-shows toward closing time.
People as young as in their 20s have been able to take advantage of the fragility of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which must be used within six hours of the vial being opened. If a vial holding six doses in the case of Pfizer or 10 in the case of Moderna is not used in time, it must be thrown away.
No one wants that to happen.
“Give ’em out!” is the state’s advice to vaccine providers, according to Max Reiss, Gov.
Ned Lamont’s spokesman. “Our general position is there’s really no such thing as a wasted vaccine as long as it gets in an arm.”
Vaccine providers are encouraged to follow as closely as possible the state’s eligibility guidelines, which until Friday includes people 55 and older and specific groups, such as first responders, educators and child care workers. But if someone hasn’t shown up for their appointment and there is a 25-yearold waiting outside, that person could be the lucky recipient of a shot in the arm.
Braden Cody and Isaac Robinson, Yale University students on leave this semester, had tried seven locations, such as CVS, Walgreens and Walmart. Last week, they were among about 10 people lined up outside the Cornell Scott Hill Health Center’s Dixwell Health Center after finding waiting lists were too long or not taking people under 55 years old.
Cody said he found out about the lines “through a Facebook group that’s just posting information about where you might find excess doses. … Some people have been having luck in these smaller health clinics.”
As for waiting lists, “the one at Walmart was like 500 names long,” Robinson said. So they started getting in line. “We got a tip that it was doable, so we started trying to do it,” he said. On Thursday, the Dixwell Avenue
clinic’s practice coordinator, Frujen Bridgewater, came out to say there were no extra doses available that day.
David Villarreal of New Haven said if there are doses available, the clinic staff will take people who meet eligibility requirements first, even if they’re not first in line.
“I came here on Tuesday and I was like two spots away from getting it,” Villarreal said.
1,000 names long
Bethany Kieley, Cornell Scott’s chief operating officer, said the health care provider stopped keeping a central waiting list when it grew to be 1,000 names long, but that each site keeps a list of people who call that day after appointment times are full.
The clinics will try to fill spots if there are cancellations or noshows, she said.
“If we know early enough in the day, then we’ll work off our waitlist,” she said. If it’s too late to get someone to come in, the dose will be offered to someone who may be in the clinic for another medical reason who meets the criteria.
If that isn’t possible, “we’ll take from the people who happen to be in the vicinity and looking to get vaccinated,” she said.
“We’re doing everything we can to meet two important things,” Kieley said. “No. 1 is to stay within the state’s criteria for eligibility, but the second is not to waste any doses.”
Bridgewater said people standing in line “is actually fairly new.” He said he looks at his number at about 2 p.m. to see whether there might be extra doses. Usually there are just a few or none. However, “the last time we had a snow day, we had 28 people call and cancel their appointment,” he said.
Kieley said most days there is no vaccine left over. Also, since the clinics are seeing patients, she gets concerned about parking and traffic flow. “We’re all juggling to do this from a staffing perspective, as well,” she said. “We literally have nobody who can sit at the phone and run down the list making phone calls.”
She said Cornell Scott usually opens slots by the week, based on its allocation. Recently, there have been 800 doses available for three locations on Dixwell Avenue and Columbus Avenue in New Haven and Putnam Avenue in Hamden.
New Haven Health Director Maritza Bond said generally there are about 30 people on a waitlist and, if there are extra doses at the end of a vaccination clinic, “we go through that list. It’s first come, first served.” Anyone who is eligible according to state guidelines will be given an appointment, however.
Usually there is no vaccine left over, she said.
“We basically have zero wastage. We are very, very fortunate,” she said. “Our pop-up sites are always booked, and we never have extra doses at our pop-up sites.”
Mayor Justin Elicker said the city now is restricting vaccinations to New Haven residents and educational personnel only in order to put more effort into vaccinating Black and brown residents and others who are vulnerable, such as people with disabilities.
“We all along have been doing what we’re asked to do by the state … but it’s clear there are significant disparities and the state is recognizing that now,” Elicker said.
Yale New Haven Health does not have a waitlist but will call people with appointments and offer to have them come in early if there are slots available, according to Dr. Ohm Deshpande, associate chief clinical officer.
“We don’t really have a group of people at the end of the day that we’re vaccinating,” he said.
“We are watching no-shows,” he said. “Our team starts calling pretty early in the day people who are scheduled for future days and we are asking them if they want to come in early and that has been effective.”
He said “it’s an infrequent situation that we would vaccinate someone who we could just track down. … The yield of getting a vaccine by waiting at a site would be a lot higher at a nonYale New Haven Health site.”
The state Department of Public Health has issued a guideline for each vaccination site to have a “wastage policy” that states, “The Guiding principle is to make all reasonable efforts to use all doses to vaccinate individuals who are eligible in the current Phase of eligibility.”
Vaccinators are encouraged to keep waitlists of people who can be called in at short notice and to ask people to come in a day later than scheduled in order to avoid opening a vial that won’t be fully used.