Delays plague US vaccination plan
State agencies and hospitals say lack of cash slows effort
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. —The race to vaccinate millions of Americans is off to a slower, messier start than public health officials and leaders of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed had expected.
Overworked, underfunded state public health departments are scrambling to patch together plans for administering vaccines. Counties and hospitals have taken different approaches, leading to long lines, confusion, frustration and jammed phone lines.
A multitude of logistical concerns have complicated the process of trying to beat back the scourge that has killed more than 345,000 Americans.
Terry Beth Hadler was so eager to get a lifesaving COVID19 vaccination that the 69-yearold piano teacher stood in line overnight in a parking lot in Bonita Springs, Florida, with hundreds of other senior citizens.
She wouldn’t do it again. Hadler said she waited 14 hours and that a brawl nearly erupted before dawn Tuesday when people cut in line outside the library where officials were offering shots on a first-come, first-served basis to those 65 or older.
“I’m afraid that the event was a superspreader,” she said. “I was petrified.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking for patience, noting the vaccine supply is limited.
“It may not be today for everyone, may not be next week. But over the next many weeks, as long as we continue getting the supply, you’re going to have the opportunity to get this,” he said Wednesday.
Florida has placed a priority on residents 65 and over to receive the vaccine once medical workers and long-term care residents and staff get the shots.
But that decision bucks a suggestion from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to place a priority on people 75 and older and essential workers like teachers and first responders as the next to get vaccinated.
Dr. Ashish Jha, a health policy researcher and dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said the main problem is that states are not getting adequate financial or technical support from the federal government. Jha said the Trump administration, principally the Department of Health and Human Services, has set states up to fail.
“There’s a lot states still need to do,” he said, “but you need a much more active role from the federal government than what they have been willing to do. They’ve largely said to states, ‘This is your responsibility. Figure it out.’ ”
Lags in reporting vaccination numbers explain in part why many states aren’t meeting their year-end goals, but officials blame logistical and financial hurdles for the slow pace.
Many states lack the money to hire personnel, pay for overtime or reach out to the public. The equipment required to keep the vaccines cold complicates their distribution. Also, providers need to track vaccinations so they have enough to dispense the required second doses 21 days after the first.
Dr. James McCarthy, chief physician executive at Memorial Hermann in Houston, said the hospital system has administered about half of the roughly 30,000 doses it has received since Dec. 15.
The system had to create a plan from scratch. Among other things, administrators had to ensure that everyone in the vaccination areas could socially distance, and they had to build in a 15-minute observation period for each patient so that recipients could be watched for any side effects.
“We can’t just hand it out like candy,” McCarthy said.
Pasadena, California, is vaccinating its firefighters in groups of 50 after their two-day shifts are over so they can recuperate during their four days off.
“We don’t want the majority of our workforce — if they do experience side effects — to be out all at the same time,” city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said.
Lin Humphrey, a college professor whose 81-year-old mother lives with him in a high-rise apartment in Miami, said it took him about 80 calls to get someone on the phone at a Miami Beach hospital that began inoculating elderly people last week.
“It reminded me of the ’80s where you had to call into a radio station to be the 10th caller to get concert tickets,” Humphrey said. “When I finally got through, I cried on the phone with the woman.”
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday set an ambitious goal of vaccinating 1 million residents in January — a task that he said would require outside cooperation and dramatically increased access to the shots.
Over the past few weeks, Trump administration health officials had talked about a goal of shipping enough vaccine by the end of the December to inoculate 20 million Americans.
Army Gen. Gustave Perna, Operation Warp Speed’s chief operating officer, said Wednesday that 14 million doses had been shipped around the country so far. Tracking by the CDC showed that as of Wednesday, nearly 2.8 million injections had been given.
Officials said there is a lag in reporting vaccinations, but they are still happening more slowly than expected. Perna predicted the pace would pick up next week.
“We agree that that number is lower than what we hoped for,” said Dr. Moncef Slaoui, Warp Speed’s chief scientist.