New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
State officials: Availability of vaccine changes daily
“We only open appointments as we get more vaccine available ...”
Dr. Thomas Balcezak, Yale New Haven Health
State officials and health care providers say there’s a strategy to finding a COVID-19 vaccine appointment that isn’t weeks away.
Demand has shown little sign of slowing as the state logged 80,000 new vaccine appointments in the first three days of those ages 45 to 54 becoming eligible last week.
As people pour into the system, complaints often surface about few available appointments, but officials say availability is subject to change almost daily.
Confident people will find vaccines in the twoweek window until the
next eligibility expansion, the state had asked providers to not book appointments for this group past mid-April.
“We have a lot of confidence that people in this phase are going to be able to book an appointment before April 5, so there’s no need to book an appointment in May as more vaccine appointments come online most days every week,” Josh Geballe, Gov. Ned Lamont’s chief operating officer, said Tuesday.
Providers were told to plan for a baseline of vaccines each week, but as the state receives its allocation numbers from the federal government by each Friday, providers are often then informed they will get additional doses of the vaccine.
Geballe said this translates to providers opening up more appointments Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday the following week based on the increased allocations.
“We only open appointments as we get more vaccine available so that we don’t disappoint people by canceling appointments, but that makes it frustrating,” said Dr. Thomas Balcezak, chief medical officer for Yale New Haven Health. “If you go right now as a 45- to 54-year-old, you might not find an appointment.”
Yale New Haven Health’s baseline request is 10,000 doses, Balcezak said, but the health network can handle much more.
This week, he said, Yale New Haven Health received 18,000 to 19,000 doses to deliver.
Connecticut has now surpassed 300,000 COVID cases since the start of the pandemic. On Tuesday, the total reached 300,565 as the daily positivity rate hit 4.49 percent. Hospitalizations increased by a net of 14 patients to 403, and four new deaths were reported, bringing the total to 7,845.
Since the state announced its aggressive plan to open eligibility up to everyone by April 5, vaccine supply has mostly increased, but not dramatically.
In each of the past two weeks, Connecticut has been allocated 115,000 and 122,000 first doses, which does not include special amounts for federally qualified health centers, state Department of Public Health statistics show.
With allotments this size, the state would need about two weeks to reach the roughly 200,000 people age 45 to 54 that the state believes wants a vaccine. If no problems arise, the numbers support a smooth transition to the last phase, eligibility for everyone age 16 to 44, on April 5.
By Monday, the state reported that more than 1 million first doses of the vaccine had been administered and 584,155 people were fully vaccinated — about 36 percent of all residents over 16.
Lamont acknowledged the modest increases in the state’s allotment of vaccines, but said Monday that number will jump in April to about 200,000 first doses a week.
This projected increase in allotment is expected to collide with the expansion to everyone age 16 to 44, a group expected to encompass about 625,000 people eager to get vaccinated.
But previous transitions have seen new people flood online sites who often cannot find a vaccine appointments in the short term. There’s little uniformity to how appointments come online with multiple systems connecting people to vaccines from several providers and chain pharmacies, including Walgreens, CVS, Walmart and Stop & Shop.
Mark Masselli, president and CEO of Community Health Centers, said schedules continue to fill up within minutes of when new appointments are posted.
“We let out new appointments and within 15 minutes, they are all gone. Clearly, there are people eager to get their shots. People are looking very carefully at the VAMS system,” Masselli said Tuesday.
He said it’s apparent that people are watching for new vaccine appointments around the clock because even when CHC, which operates four mass vaccination sites and other smaller clinics, posts new appointments at midnight, they still are quickly booked.
“People are eager to get their shots ... there’s both joy for people getting vaccines and some frustration for those who would have to wait a little longer than they would like,” Masselli said.
Similarly, Balcezak said when Yale New Haven Health updated with 8,000 new appointments on Friday, when eligibility expanded, the slots were gone within a day.
“We ask people to be patient and keep checking back on our website to see if there’s an appointment available for them,”
Balcezak said.
But with the early influx of new vaccine seekers during a transition, concern falls on double booking — people taking the best appointment available then scheduling a better appointment when it comes online. Officials have urged people to remember to cancel the second appointment, or else the spot could go unused.
With several systems to make
vaccine appointments, officials acknowledge it’s hard to monitor.
“We see some of that happening. It’s an annoyance, it’s not disruptive,” Masselli said. “I’m not worried about it. That’s not to say it doesn’t cause some dislocation.”
Geballe said it hasn’t been a problem that has bubbled up in Connecticut. He said providers do a good job about verifying
appointments in advance so vaccines do not get wasted.
These problems have an expiration date. Demand will soon dry up, but vaccines will keep coming to the state.
Officials believe that transition will happen by late April or early May, and data showing people willing to get vaccinated compared to supply support their claims.