Region lags behind others in vaccination distribution, results
The arrival of the COVID vaccine in December provided hope that an end to the pandemic was near.
However, the rollout of the vaccine in Pennsylvania, particularly in the southeastern part of the state, continues to frustrate residents, vaccine providers and county officials.
Limited vaccine supply has made it difficult for people to find vaccine appointments and for vaccine providers that are dependent on the state’s weekly allocation of doses to make appointments available.
County officials in the region also share these frustrations as the state remains in Phase 1A of its vaccination plan.
Vaccine supply is limited across the U.S. and Pennsylvania, but some regions have been receiving higher allocations of doses per capita, resulting in a higher number of people vaccinated than other regions and counties.
The southeast was a target of the state’s focus in the early months of the pandemic. It was a hot spot for cases and the last to go green, fully reopen, in the state during the shutdown.
Based on vaccine allocations and the number of people vaccinated since December, the region does not appear to be receiving the same amount of attention when it comes to vaccine distribution.
With other regions and counties seemingly doing well with their vaccination efforts, why is the southeastern part of the state lagging behind?
Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam acknowledged during a media briefing Thursday that there have been flaws in the distribution in the southeast.
She said a meeting with representatives of counties in the region was scheduled for Thursday morning but was postponed so her staff could do a deep dive into the issue. She said the meeting would be rescheduled.
Not all counties in the region were invited to the meeting. Berks County officials said they were not invited.
Montgomery County
The uncertainty about the formula that determines how much vaccine an area gets is shared by Montgomery County commissioners Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh, who said she is hoping for increased transparency from the state Department of Health.
“I think…it’s probably fair to say that none of us understand what the (vaccine) allocation algorithm is for the southeastern Pennsylvania counties,” she said. “So, I’m looking for more transparency. I’m looking to understand how these allocation decisions are being made. I’m hoping that once that information is given to us and we understand it, we will be able to better advocate for more doses here to our region.”
As a physician Arkoosh has been at the forefront of Montgomery County’s efforts to combat COVID-19 and provide citizens with the latest information regarding the outbreak.
She noted that southeast Pennsylvania provides a substantial contribution to the state’s revenue and tax base, a bigger contribution than its proportion of the population.
Arkoosh said the region should be receiving more vaccines — something she hopes happens soon — and that officials are prepared to dispense the doses.
“Everybody who lives here knows that people travel between our counties for work, for recreation and all sorts of activities, and that we need to get the southeast back as an entity, as a whole, as a whole region, in order to get our economic engine back on track here for the entire commonwealth,” Arkoosh said.
Arkoosh said the county is ready to open additional mass vaccination sites when vaccine supplies increase.
“I want to be very clear, it’s a delivery of vaccine issue,” she said. “The vaccine situation is changing on a daily basis, and I want to ask our community to have understanding and patience during this ongoing situation.”
Arkoosh said people send her heartbreaking stories about needing vaccines for themselves and loved ones but there’s nothing she can do.
“It’s really tough,” she said. “It makes me die inside a little bit every single day.
“I’m a physician and my whole life has been spent trying to help people heal and it just kills me that we have so many people who really do need to be vaccinated and we are nowhere close to having enough vaccine for them.”
Arkoosh is hopeful that in another six to eight weeks there will be enough vaccine to make it easier for people to be inoculated.
“Knowing that more vaccine is coming, we want to be able to say yes to every dose offered to us and we will be ready for it when it comes,” she said. “I know it’s coming, and I try to help people remain hopeful. But it’s tough.”
For those who have already preregistered on the county Office of Public Health’s vaccine site, officials continue to send weekly emails to keep residents updated on the vaccination progress and what to expect when it’s their turn to get an appointment for a vaccine.
“At this time, and depending upon when you registered, it may be up to 12 weeks before you hear back from us about scheduling an appointment with our current rate of supply. We now have information on our website to give those who have preregistered some idea of where they are in the line,” said Arkoosh, referring to a link on the county’s vaccine site under “Status of Vaccine Registrants.”
Delaware County
When combining the four suburban Philadelphia counties — Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery — there are approximately 2.5 million residents there, or 22 percent percent of Pennsylvania’s population without including Philadelphia.
On Feb. 20, the state Department of Health COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboard reported that these four suburban counties had distributed 187,229 first doses and 93,676 full vaccinations. Pennsylvania itself had disseminated 1,421,115 first doses and 510,442 full doses overall.
Another way to look at this is that the four suburban Philadelphia counties have almost a fourth of Pennsylvania’s population, not including Philadelphia, but have only received 14.5 percent of the state’s vaccine distributions. State health officials won’t say why.
Delaware County Council Chairman Brian Zidek said county officials were having hourly and daily conversations with state representatives and senators, and even had a discussion with the acting state Health Secretary Alison Beam on Feb. 13 to outline how prepared Delaware County is to distribute the vaccine, that all that is needed is the vaccine supply itself.
“It does unfortunately come down to who you know, whether you get lucky refreshing your browser at the right time for a particular pharmacy and that’s the opposite of equity, that’s the opposite of fairness,” Delaware County Councilman Kevin Madden said, adding that the process should have been streamlined. “Had we been provided the vaccines necessary … we’d be in a much cleaner and more sensible place for the public.”
Chester County
On Feb. 25, the three Chester County commissioners stood outside the county’s Health Department to give a joint update with the county’s chief health official of where the county stands in the fight against the pandemic. They painted a hopeful, if difficult, picture.
After throwing out a myriad of numbers to explain the size and scope of their overall mitigation efforts, the clear message the trio delivered was one of frustration at the difficulty they and county officials have had getting across their hope that the state would work more closely with their health department at delivering vaccines to people in the county hoping for the first dose.
“Providing more vaccine doses to our health department is the smart decision and it is this direction that we have been asking the state Department of Health to take for weeks,” commissioners Chairwoman Marian Moskowitz said at the press conference.
“I will tell you now, that we are working every day to advocate to the state that we need more vaccines and to prove to the state that the skills, the resources and the investment of county health departments like ours should now be put to best use in getting the people of this region vaccinated against COVID-19 in the most efficient and equitable way possible,” Moskowitz said.
Asked the level of frustration the commissioners had experienced in finding their requests for more doses — with proper notice, they contended they could administer more than 30,000 doses a week instead of the relatively paltry 2,500 a week the county is now receiving — Republican Commissioner Michelle Kichline responded, “The answer to your question is a 10.”