Holy Name Medical Center CEO Michael Maron told CNBC on Tuesday that Covid’s vaccination efforts at his New Jersey hospital were hampered by a consistent problem: inconsistent availability.
“The biggest challenge we face now is providing the vaccine. We just can’t get it and we can’t get it in any reliable way. It’s very difficult,” Maron told Power Lunch.
“In a week we will have Pfizer, in the next week we will have Moderna,” he added, referring to the manufacturers of the two vaccines that have received emergency use authorizations from the US Food and Drug Administration. “We never know how much of this is coming, whether it’s a thousand doses … or two thousand or more.”
To date, Maron said Holy Name Medical Center – located in Teaneck, near New York City – has administered about 5,000 doses of the vaccine. However, Maron said the hospital has the capacity to deliver 3,000 doses a day, thanks in part to a partnership it has established with Teaneck to create a vaccination site at a community center.
On Monday, 570 residents received the vaccine on the site, according to a post on Teaneck’s official website. But due to “lack of available vaccine,” Township Director Dean Kazinci wrote, the site is closed on Tuesday – illustrating the supply challenges Maron talked about.
“Holy Name Medical Center is waiting for the delivery of the additional vaccine trays, which should reach mid-week. We will release additional information when it becomes available,” Kazinci wrote.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the Holy Name website also tells visitors that the hospital is not scheduling Covid vaccination meetings “at this time” due to availability constraints.
The launch of Covid vaccines in the US has been slower than officials expected. About 12.3 million doses have been administered since Friday, according to the latest available data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 31.2 million doses were distributed.
President-elect Joe Biden, who will take office on Wednesday, has promised to speed up the launch of the vaccine with a commitment to deliver 100 million doses in 100 days. On Sunday, Biden’s election to lead the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said she believed the United States would have an adequate amount of vaccine to achieve the goal.
“It’s going to be a tough lift, but we have enough to do,” Walensky told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Covid hospitalizations
While Covid vaccinations are key in limiting the impact of the disease, Maron has warned that the US coronavirus outbreak is a current threat. On Tuesday, the number of deaths in the country in Covid eclipsed 400,000, just over a month after registering 300,000 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Maron said Covid’s hospitalizations at Holy Name Medical Center are not at levels seen earlier in the pandemic, such as in March and April. The hospital also has better treatments for patients now, he said. However, he said that a worrying aspect was the age of the patients hospitalized with the disease.
“He’s not who you think he is,” Maron said. “These are mostly people between the ages of 45 and 65, so these are not the fragile old people that everyone has talked about. These are the ones who are on the fans, so we are somewhat concerned.”
He said it was unclear what causes hospitalizations among younger residents in the United States. “For us here in the industry, it’s a reminder that this is still a very, very serious and deadly virus. We shouldn’t take it easily.”