Counties protest plan for state-run site

Montco joins leaders expressing concern for vaccine equity

NORRISTOWN >> Elected officials in four Southeast Pennsylvania counties expressed concerns about the state’s plans to open a regional site to distribute the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine instead of considering a request to allocate the vaccine directly to each of the four counties.

In a joint statement issued late Thursday by officials from Montgomery, Chester, Delaware and Bucks counties, elected leaders said they are “extremely disappointed” that the Pennsylvania Department of Health is not considering their request.

“We have reiterated our concerns about establishing a regional PEMA (Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency) site for many reasons and we remain deeply concerned that equitable distribution will be compromised at such a site,” the leaders wrote in the joint statement.

The statement followed a meeting the leaders had with state health officials earlier this week.

“Instead of working with local elected officials and county health departments closest to the people we serve, the state has chosen to take the advice of a Boston logistics company to establish regional sites as our local mass vaccination sites sit underutilized,” the county leaders wrote. “We have highly qualified public health and safety teams in place, high-volume locations secured, and more than 500,000 people waiting on our collective lists to get their shots. We just need more supply.”

The elected officials maintained opening a separate state-run vaccination location raises important questions that residents deserve to know the answers to, “such as will they have to pre-register on yet another list to receive the vaccine at these new regional vaccine sites or if their current places in line will be kept.”

“We also have questions on how will the state ensure equitable access for these regional sites including options for telephone registration and language access. These questions remain to be answered,” the elected officials wrote. “The

last thing we want is to see our constituents have to sign up for yet another list when they have already been waiting for weeks.

“We also remain concerned that without an allocation of single shot Johnson and Johnson vaccines our efforts to efficiently vaccinate our most vulnerable residents will be hampered. This includes residents experiencing homelessness, homebound individuals, and people within our correctional facilities,” elected officials added.

For all the reasons cited, officials implored the state Department of Health to allocate its surplus supply of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine to counties directly.

Recognizing that the decision will be made by state health officials, and in order to meet its requirement that the four counties provide two sites acceptable to all of the counties, local officials said Bucks and Montgomery counties will identify a joint site and Chester and Delaware counties will identify a joint site.

“In the hope that the (state health department) will give further consideration to our request to allow the four counties to distribute the vaccine, each county is also identifying an additional site that it is prepared to run that would be able to distribute its share of the vaccine,” local leaders wrote in the statement to state officials.

The Montgomery County Office of Public Health previously opened vaccination clinics at Norristown High School and another hosted by the Montgomery County Community College campus in Whitpain, where the two dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccines have been distributed.

A third vaccination clinic opened on Friday at the Parkside Shopping Center, in the former Petco location, in Willow Grove.

The state remains in Phase 1A of its vaccine distribution program, which includes those 65 and older, health care workers and anyone age 16 to 64 with specific medical conditions.

Montgomery County has a waiting list of more than 127,000 people currently pre-registered for the vaccine in Phase 1A.

During a news briefing on Wednesday, Montgomery County officials revealed they submitted a proposal to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency to distribute the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine as part of a regional approach proposed by Gov. Tom Wolf and the state’s COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force.

State officials have said that once the state has completed the current task of vaccinating teachers with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the next supply of the vaccine will be made available to regional clinics throughout the state.

“We’re hopeful that we will be able to secure a fair share of this new supply of the J&J vaccine to target frontline workers, first responders and continue to work through our 1A waiting list here in Montgomery County. We will be ready to give it,” county Commissioners’ Chairwoman Dr. Valerie Arkoosh said on Wednesday.

Arkoosh said the county’s Office of Public Health and neighboring counties have been activating pre-existing plans, that they spent years developing, to distribute vaccinations to the population during a public health emergency.

“We have conveyed to the state that our plans are ready. All four counties in the Southeast have unused capacity to administer vaccines here in the Southeast on the order of thousands of doses a day across our four counties and with the goal of making sure these doses are distributed equitably and as quickly as possible to work through all of the 1A waiting list that all four of our counties have,” Arkoosh explained.

“We are conveying that it is our strongest preference that we continue to have these sites in our counties so that they are much closer and more accessible for everyone in our community and that we simply do what the state has always asked of us, which is to be the first responders in the case of a public health emergency requiring vaccination or administration of antibiotics,” Arkoosh continued.

“We answered the call. We’re ready. We’re just asking for the vaccine,” Arkoosh added.

Arkoosh said the counties’ plans “are put together thoughtfully.”

“They take into account the needs of all community members in our communities. They lead to the location of sites that make it easier for all people to get to them” Arkoosh said.

“The four of us do share concerns that with only a single location in our region, you would really have to have a car in almost all cases to get there. The drive times could be extensive and we worry that this will only further deepen the inequities that we are already seeing in the distribution of this vaccine,” Arkoosh explained.

Arkoosh said the four counties are prepared and focused on equitable distribution.

“I think if you look around our four counties and all of the work that we’re doing in terms of where we have located our mass vaccination sites, whether they’re open yet or simply potential sites, and what we’re all doing with mobile vaccination, taking vaccine to some of our most vulnerable communities that don’t have good transportation, I think that you’ll see that because of these longstanding plans that we’ve had in place that we were ready and prepared to deliver these vaccines equitably,” Arkoosh said.

“So we’re trying to get everybody vaccinated as quickly as possible but always keeping an eye on equitable distribution of that vaccine,” Arkoosh added during the news briefing.