After a troubled roll out of the COVID-19 vaccine, Virginia health officials announced its limited supply will now be divided based on the population of the region.
During a telephone press conference last week, Dr. Danny Avula said local health departments will soon receive information on how much of the state’s 105,000 doses they are receiving on a weekly basis, but those doses must be shared with medical providers, pharmacies and hospitals.
The Botetourt County Health Department did not return a request for comment.
As of Tuesday morning, Botetourt County had 1,771 confirmed cases, up from 1,670 the week before. The county’s death total from COVID was 20 up from 18 last week. However, health officials said the death count is based on death certificates being released to them and that can take four to six weeks.
Dr. Avula said the challenge of this new system is localities that receive only a couple thousands dozes each week and must share them with a host of other medical institutes.
“How do you do that in a way that even comes close to meeting the demand,” he asked. “The answer is you don’t. And understandably that has led to a great deal of confusion and frustration on the part of the public.”
Prior to the new system, Virginia’s Department of Health was giving out doses requested by health systems and health districts when those vaccines were limited to health care workers. However, when the state expanded its pool of people available for vaccination and increased the numbers of Virginians available for Phase 1b, which includes about 50 percent of Virginia’s population, orders were coming in for three times as many doses than the state could handle.
Critics of the state’s handling of the vaccination program claim the state is not being transparent in its doses accounting and that its COVID-19 website lacks how many doses have been shipped and how many injections were administered. Under pressure, the state Health Department released limited information about doses administered by five health regions, but not how many doses were shipped to those regions.
Some regions are reporting they received no doses to give patients, mainly in rural areas. Local health officials in rural areas have told media outlets the distribution should be based on COVID positivity rates, which are extremely high in rural areas.
During the conference call, Dr. Avula said there are hiccups in the system, but health officials think the most “equitable way” is to release doses based on a region’s population.
If additional doses become available, the state health department would consider expanding the vaccine to localities with a population of older and vulnerable people.
While Dr. Avula is pleased with the new Biden Administration plans to arm jab 100 million doses in people during the first 100 days, he warned that will not start until the end of February. And, he added, Virginia is not expected to see a jump in doses.
Nursing home issues
Approximately 40 percent of the 420,000 COVID deaths in the U.S. were nursing home residents.
A recent opinion piece published by The Virginia Mercury, Tinglong Dai, a professor of operations management and business analytics at John Hopkins University, compared Virginia’s rollout to neighboring West Virginia, which leads the nation in nursing home COVID vaccinations.
Dai contents The Mountain State opted out of a federal partnership that depends on two giant chain pharmacies – Walgreens and CVS – to administer vaccines to nursing homes; whereas West Virginia relies on both chain and local pharmacies.
“The big difference is in the numbers,” he writes. “Under the federal partnership, CVS planned to have about 1,000 of its pharmacies as vaccine hubs to serve some 25,000 nursing home facilities across the nation…. Similarly, a Walgreens official said his company would have 800 to 1,000 Walgreens pharmacies to serve as a hub for about 23,000 nursing home facilities.”
In West Virginia, state health officials decided to mobilize independent and chair pharmacies alike, rather than rely on the two giants. More than 250 pharmacies offered to help vaccinate residents and workers in 214 nursing homes. “In other words, each nursing home on average is served by more than one pharmacy,” he wrote.
