Allocation plan for vaccinations is flawed one

System doesn’t account for seasonal population in Yuma County

The COVID-19 vaccination process has been a mess.

People want the vaccination, which is a good problem to have. But the registration website and the local county phone numbers have proven to be challenging at best.

And recently, it came to light that there is a much bigger problem: a big chunk of people aren’t accounted for when it comes to allocating the vaccine to our county – and yet, those people also want vaccines, and can get them here.

The number of vaccines allocated to each county is based on population numbers. And in some areas, that equation works.

But not in Yuma County, which is home to a variety of temporary folks who aren’t included in those population counts, but instead are counted in their home states.

For example, Yuma County has 80,000 winter visitors, a population that is likely to be older than age 65. This is prime winter visitor season, yet that group isn’t accounted for when factoring our vaccine allocations – and yet, that group is likely to want the vaccine too.

It also doesn’t account for seasonal workers like our essential farm workers.

Yuma County is also home to 800 Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol officers who are competing for vaccine allocations here too.

We’ve struggled as a community to bring the pandemic under control.

“Over the course of the pandemic, the Yuma area has identified coronavirus cases at a higher rate than any other U.S. region. One out of every six residents has come down with the virus,” the New York Times recently reported, as Yuma lands in the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

Yuma County needs help – and that’s best delivered in the form of more doses of the vaccinations.

State Rep. Charlene Fernandez and State Sen. Lisa Otondo recently sent a letter to the Biden Administration asking for more vaccine doses to meet Yuma County’s unique needs.

And the mayors of Yuma, San Luis, Somerton and Wellton, along with the Board of Supervisors, sent a similar letter to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, asking for more vaccine doses.

It is absolutely critical that the state reconsider how these vaccinations are allocated, and accounts for the extra people in our community.

The goal is to get everyone vaccinated – be it a longtime resident, a winter visitor, a farm worker, etc. But that can only happen if local entities receive enough vaccinations to get the job done.

Please reach out to your elected officials at the state and federal level, and let them know we need our vaccine allocations increased, immediately.

Unsigned editorials represent the viewpoint of this newspaper rather than an individual. Columns and letters to the editor represent the viewpoints of the persons writing them and do not necessarily represent the views of the Yuma Sun.