So far the vaccine rollout has been less than ideal to put it lightly. As best as I can tell, the demand is high for the vaccine across the state and people just can't seem to get access to it. So what happens in about 2-4 weeks when all of the first round people need their second dose? If we are having trouble getting people the first round, aren't we about to dramatically increase the demand for doses?


Is this state going to be able to handle the current demand and second round vaccines?
How much wiggle room do you have when it comes to the window for the second dose?
What will happen if a person get their second dose on time?

This is a completely anecdotal, one data point response, but I had this conversation with a HCW I know who was vaccinated last week.

She was given a return date for the second dose, but was told it will be pending availability. There is no guarantee that she will receive it. Even if doses are available, she doesn't get any kind of priority (at least not at the provider she used).

Yeah lots of rural counties have one pharmacy with vaccines. It's going to be huge burden unless we can start shipping to more pharmacies and clinics.

The Ohio Governor stated in a recent press conference 60% of health care workers servicing nursing homes have opted out of the vaccine.

https://nypost.com/2020/12/30/most-ohio-nursing-home-workers-not-taking-covid-19-vaccine/

In California about 50% of the healthcare workers have opted to pass on the vaccine.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-31/healthcare-workers-refuse-covid-19-vaccine-access

I think it is safe to say it may not even be an access issue in getting numbers up. Rather some folks are not motivated in receiving it.

I don't disagree with what you said here. I think the pop up locations like Tarrant County and Denton County have already instituted are working very well. I wish Collin County would do something like that.

I do disagree with this: "I think it is safe to say it may not even be an access issue in getting numbers up. Rather some folks are not motivated in receiving it." It's definitely an access issue. That's why a pop-up location would be useful.

The simple answer here is there will continue to be a massive supply-demand imbalance and will only be made worse when phase 1A folks are coming back around and phases 1C and beyond are opened up.

The only relief valve is more physical supply. The UK's approach has been to delay the second shot and administer the vaccine to that many more people, in part because of their runaway case growth.

What really doesn't make sense to me is that our one distribution pharmacy located in the northern part of our county is being shipped 500 doses of Moderna vaccine while there are at least 4 pharmacies located in the southern part of the county that are currently not on the distribution list even though the majority of the population is in the southern part of the county.

Naturally the pharmacy with the 500 doses is going take several days to dispense the 500 doses where if the vaccine had been somewhat evenly distributed to the other pharmacies then all of them could probably dispense all 500 doses in one are two days. Speed in getting the vaccine dispensed should be the top priority. I know so many people, including myself, that can't get an appointment right now to get the vaccine. Any thoughts about there not being a demand for the vaccine isn't anywhere close to being true.

TYRY43 said:

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What really doesn't make sense to me is that our one distribution pharmacy located in the northern part of our county is being shipped 500 doses of Moderna vaccine while there are at least 4 pharmacies located in the southern part of the county that are currently not on the distribution list even though the majority of the population is in the southern part of the county.

Naturally the pharmacy with the 500 doses is going take several days to dispense the 500 doses where if the vaccine had been somewhat evenly distributed to the other pharmacies then all of them could probably dispense all 500 doses in one are two days. Speed in getting the vaccine dispensed should be the top priority. I know so many people, including myself, that can't get an appointment right now to get the vaccine. Any thoughts about there not being a demand for the vaccine isn't anywhere close to being true.

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I wonder if it has to do with the storage requirements. Maybe the other places don't have the facilities to store it.

I don't know what's going on at a lot of pharmacies, but our hospital pharmacy calculated how many doses they would need for the second round and held those in reserve.

nai06 said:

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TYRY43 said:

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What really doesn't make sense to me is that our one distribution pharmacy located in the northern part of our county is being shipped 500 doses of Moderna vaccine while there are at least 4 pharmacies located in the southern part of the county that are currently not on the distribution list even though the majority of the population is in the southern part of the county.

Naturally the pharmacy with the 500 doses is going take several days to dispense the 500 doses where if the vaccine had been somewhat evenly distributed to the other pharmacies then all of them could probably dispense all 500 doses in one are two days. Speed in getting the vaccine dispensed should be the top priority. I know so many people, including myself, that can't get an appointment right now to get the vaccine. Any thoughts about there not being a demand for the vaccine isn't anywhere close to being true.

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I wonder if it has to do with the storage requirements. Maybe the other places don't have the facilities to store it.

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Storage shouldn't be a problem with the Moderna vaccine which is what most pharmacies are receiving. The Pfizer vaccine has special refrigeration requirements which most pharmacies don't have. Hopefully Walgreens and CVS will be on the Moderna distribution lists soon for vaccinating 1B qualified folks. That would help tremendously in our area.

fightingfarmer09 said:

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The Ohio Governor stated in a recent press conference 60% of health care workers servicing nursing homes have opted out of the vaccine.

https://nypost.com/2020/12/30/most-ohio-nursing-home-workers-not-taking-covid-19-vaccine/

In California about 50% of the healthcare workers have opted to pass on the vaccine.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-31/healthcare-workers-refuse-covid-19-vaccine-access

I think it is safe to say it may not even be an access issue in getting numbers up. Rather some folks are not motivated in receiving it.

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If you investigate that statistic, it's largely weighted by Southern California (where there is a death every 10 minutes) skilled nursing facility workers. In other words, lesser educated medical workers. Doctors and nurses are getting it at an 80% rate statewide and at a no name facility like Stanford Medical Center only 4% declined. Hmmmm, what does that tell you?

that the lower educated aren't wanting it?

don't know why that would be encouraging necessarily

I think this is true.

I think the vaccines are perfectly safe (and technologically incredible breakthroughs, in the US, not talking about China/Russia) and that there is an undercurrent of skepticism mostly among the uneducated/non-professional classes.

Sadly, many don't trust our media now for both good and bad reasons. Also, in the early stages some states are doing a terrible job at vaccine roll out (looking at CA/NY specifically) and some are doing much better, entrusting their healthcare sector workers to do their jobs.

I freely admit to being politically of strong beliefs myself, but I think the politicization of this crisis/virus during a presidential election year has unfortunately made resistance to the vaccines very real.

cone said:

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that the lower educated aren't wanting it?

don't know why that would be encouraging necessarily

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I don't think it's encouraging at all. My point was that under the heading healthcare workers, it's misleading to not point out Doctors and RN's find it safe at a much greater rate and that tells me we need a greater emphasis on education.

Heck maybe I can moonlight at a care home and get a vaccination!

too late for that now

my anecdotal experience

doctors will crawl across broken glass for the vaccine

support staff (techs, paramedics, registration people, even some RNs) are pretty skeptical and want to wait and see (and maybe that's being optimistic)

note that known of these people are stupid and/or incapable of good competent work within the field of medicine. but yes there's a clear educational and social status divide.

cone said:

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too late for that now

my anecdotal experience

doctors will crawl across broken glass for the vaccine

support staff (techs, paramedics, registration people, even some RNs) are pretty skeptical and want to wait and see (and maybe that's being optimistic)

note that known of these people are stupid and/or incapable of good competent work within the field of medicine. but yes there's a clear educational and social status divide.

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My pharmacy friend is skeptical as well. He knew about what happened in Australia with HIV and the vaccine.

But not because they're "uneducated." They simply just want to see more data/studies behind it which is what an educated person making a decision does. It is not unreasonable by any means.

fightingfarmer09 said:

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But if you set up the infrastructure to service folks in a small subset it is hard to pivot when you have extra doses. And no one pivots slower than the government.

You are imagining too much of a narrative for me to be following. They shipped the vaccines to location A. Didn't have enough adoption, but can't get the vaccines to location B in time to fulfill the immediate demand. That's poor planning, and quite shocking to me on the adoption rate from front line folks.

ETA: Set up a pop up stand and make it completely walk up. Community by community. No pre req, no screening. If you want it come get it.

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Totally agree with this. Imagining the government could pull something off more efficient than this is fantasy land.

Just get it out there.

TheMasterplan said:

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cone said:

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too late for that now

my anecdotal experience

doctors will crawl across broken glass for the vaccine

support staff (techs, paramedics, registration people, even some RNs) are pretty skeptical and want to wait and see (and maybe that's being optimistic)

note that known of these people are stupid and/or incapable of good competent work within the field of medicine. but yes there's a clear educational and social status divide.

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My pharmacy friend is skeptical as well. He knew about what happened in Australia with HIV and the vaccine.

But not because they're "uneducated." They simply just want to see more data/studies behind it which is what an educated person making a decision does. It is not unreasonable by any means.

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I think uneducated is a relative term. Non-MD/PharmD healthcare workers are close enough to healthcare decisions to see how fragile the human body is (and how fallible doctors can be), but far enough away from the physiological technicalities that they don't understand the science. Doctors do understand that science, hence their lack of hesitation in being first in line.