Raleigh, NC – The secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services apologized Monday afternoon for a call with county hospitals and health departments for changes to the calculation of the distribution of the coronavirus vaccine, which has seen some struggling to balance a decrease in supply with an increase in demand.
Dr. Mandy Cohen proposed that instead of a weekly allocation to counties that leaves them unable to plan well in advance, the state would guarantee a minimum basic allocation each week for the next three weeks.
“Three weeks is what we feel comfortable with for sure,” Cohen said.
The call came after local hospitals and health departments were forced to cancel or delay thousands of vaccination appointments across the state after a lower-than-expected allocation.
Some of the supplies that counties and hospitals expect to have on hand in the coming weeks will instead be redirected to at least one massive vaccination event that the state hopes will speed up the process of obtaining gunfire.
The event, from Friday to Sunday, in Charlotte, at the Bank of America stadium, could reach up to 20,000 people.
But that comes at a cost: extracting supplies from hospitals and health departments that the state had just told to speed up its own vaccination efforts.
Cohen said vaccination operations faced a double whammy this week. The state has urged hospitals and health departments in recent weeks to speed up and burn through a dose delay so that the federal government does not punish the state by reducing future transportation. But the new pace did not mean that the state would receive more than the approximately 120,000 first doses it receives each week.
“I apologize for not being clearer,” Cohen said in the afternoon’s call. “I have this and I apologize. It puts you all in a difficult, difficult position. “
The state arrives with allocation numbers at the end of each week, and by the end of the week, it was clear that hospitals and health departments would receive less vaccine than the vaccines had planned. Only Cone Health, which serves the Greensboro area, said it would cancel 10,400 appointments for the first dose.
Schedules for the second dose will not be affected, the system said.
Local health department officials wrote to Cohen on Sunday, saying they would be forced to call an unknown number of people, most of them over 65, to cancel appointments.
“This is after (the local health departments) did exactly what was directed at them: schedule appointments, commit to individuals, and put them in future slots,” said the heads of the Carolina Association of Local Health Directors. North in their letter.
“Because the doses have been diverted, grandparents who had appointments in rural NC are now waiting,” the letter reads. “Healthcare workers who have had patient appointments are now waiting.”
The Association of State Hospitals expressed similar frustrations, saying in its own letter to Governor Roy Cooper that the state needs a better distribution plan and that hospitals need more input with fewer surprises.
“Hospitals have also repeatedly pivoted at short notice to accommodate various directives and urgent orders from state and federal leaders, usually without prior consultation for contributions or clear measures of success,” the letter reads. “We can, and can, adapt on the fly, but it is time for the state to take action now to coordinate a better plan and path for vaccine implementation.”
State officials acknowledged the frustrations and said they were trying to speed up the process, but the offer remained limited. Cohen and other top officials in the state’s vaccination effort spent about an hour at Monday’s conference call, presenting the new plan, asking for feedback and promising better communication.
Kody Kinsley, a DHHS deputy secretary focused on the pandemic response, said local providers could expect the new vaccine quantities expected in the next three weeks on Tuesday. Cohen said the state will take 84,000 doses of the state’s expected weekly allocations and divide it among counties by population, then divide it among providers in each county.
“That means not all providers will be able to vaccinate,” she said. “Numbers don’t work for everyone.”
The remaining 36,000 doses the state receives each week will be used to “add” organizations that can help reach marginalized communities, including rural and minority communities that are usually served, Cohen said.
Once local operations receive the shipments, they will have five to six days to get all these doses in arms, Cohen said. Demand will continue to far exceed supply, she said.
“We won’t have enough vaccine, I don’t think, for a while,” she said. “It simply came to our notice then. We will work together. I apologize again. ”