New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
City expects more vaccine as eligibility pool grows
NEW HAVEN — City Health Director Maritza Bond said Monday she is excited by news that people 45 and older will be eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine as of Friday and that everyone 16 and older will be eligible on April 5.
She said she had heard the news on a conference call at 1 p.m.
“What we do need to do, however, is revisit our vaccination
plan … so we can be able to vaccinate effectively, really making sure we scale up the staff, engage our vaccination partners … just really going through the logistics of planning.”
She said state officials said during the conference call that more vaccines would be allocated to providers, above the 500 to
600 doses the city receives weekly.
She said while older people account for more deaths from COVID, the largest group that is “negatively impacted” is young adults. “When we look at the positivity rate, it’s consistently been 25- to 49year-olds,” she said.
“I’m just super-elated that we are targeting younger populations,” she said.
“It’s good that we put the people who are ready to be vaccinated at the front of the line,” including younger people, while those who are hesitant will wait, Bond said. She said the city’s demographic is younger than statewide.
“We’re elated that the governor is pivoting his approach,” which she called “really complementary” to President Joe Biden’s declaration that all adults be eligible to be vaccinated by May 1.
The city partners with Cornell Scott Hill Health Center and Fair Haven Community Health Care, Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale University’s health plan.
Mayor Justin Elicker said, “I think we’re working as fast as we can to ensure that we provide the most vaccines for the community and in particular want to make sure that the most vulnerable residents of New Haven have access to the vaccine.”
Two ways the city is doing that are by popup clinics in targeted neighborhoods and restricting city Health Department appointments to New Haven residents and those who work in city schools.
“I think we’re acutely aware of the challenges around ensuring that people that may have barriers to signing up for vaccines have access to them,” Elicker said. “The more people in the pool to get vaccines, the more important it is for us to make sure that people who don’t have access to the internet or don’t speak English are supported in signing up.”
He said it also is important that people with underlying health conditions receive vaccinations.
Dr. Thomas Balcezak, chief clinical officer for
Yale New Haven Health, greeted the news positively.
“I think what’s exciting, the reason we’re moving to 45 sooner than the 2nd [of April], is really getting traction on 55 and up sooner than expected,” he said, with about 57 percent of that population having received their shots.
“We’re getting there but we are by no means actually there yet,” he said. But he added, “We should be as a state justifiably proud of those numbers.”
Balcezak said the pool of eligible residents can be increased more quickly than planned largely because “the Janssen Johnson & Johnson vaccine is really going to start coming at the end of March. … I think Johnson & Johnson is going to be a big part of our growth and the neat thing there is only one dose, so two weeks after one dose you’re fully immunized.”
“There might be more hesitancy in younger ages, so it might be good that we’re getting the word out and we’re continuing to expand the group that is waiting” to get vaccinated, Balcezak said. “The more people that get vaccinated, the more people that are willing to be vaccinated.”
He said there is enough capacity at the Yale New Haven vaccination sites. “If we get many more doses, we’ll have to change the staffing, which is marginally increased,” he said.
Bethany Kieley, chief operating officer of Cornell Scott, said unless the state provides more vaccines, “it’s going to be really frustrating for folks who are told they are eligible.”
Once everyone 16 and older can make an appointment, “that’s going to be a huge number of people hitting the website and the phone lines at once, so we’re concerned,” Kieley said.
Kieley said one development that will help is that Cornell Scott has been invited to join “a new distribution channel for federally qualified health centers like ours,” to get vaccines directly from the federal government, which may free up the state to redirect vaccines to other providers.
Cornell Scott and Fair Haven Community Health Care are the two federally qualified health centers in New Haven.
“The good news is we have a few weeks to try to shore ourselves up to be ready for this big influx on 4/5,” Kieley said.
Nanci Fortgang, chief clinical operations officer at Yale University, said in a statement, “Yale remains ready to ramp up operations as soon as we have regular allocations of vaccines.
“We are actively speaking with the State of Connecticut and our community partners to collaborate to facilitate the most efficient delivery and administration of vaccines to our community,” Fortgang said.