I’m in CT. All of our nursing homes are done with the first shot. CVS or Walgreens went to the places. They were able to offer the vaccine to all staff and residents. It was a much easier group to do than those who are spread out all over the cities and towns.
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I’m sure there’s an explanation - I sent in the question to the radio announcer who interviews Dr. Shah each Monday morning.
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My point was that I believe there ARE a lot of volunteers who are able, willing and ready to give shots. My belief is based on my kid and all of her coworkers who would love to do more of this. Maybe it’s different in different states, but at least in her area of MA this doesn’t seem to be a problem.
Thumper, I am an immunizer for long term care facilities. I suspect it is not as easy to do as it might appear. Some days I drive 200 miles to first pick up the vaccine, then drive to rural facilities. This type of service is very necessary for these dear sweet people. But I still maintain that the process will be expedited when the general population can travel on their own to central immunizing facilities.
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It sounds like this is a perfect example of something that a vaccine czar for your area could fix. Unless you need special equipment for the transport, I bet there are any number of people willing to volunteer to take the vaccine from that central facility to whatever nursing homes/assisted living you will be vaccinating at that day. They could start with asking for volunteers from the local volunteer firefighters/ambulance corps. That would save you that 2 hours a day and give you more time to vaccinate more people. Or, if people don’t like the idea of a volunteer, pay a police officer or ambulance co to deliver it.
In NYS (and likely elsewhere) these people can get training to administer the vaccine and it’s featured prominently on the website:
- Licensed practical nurses (LPNs)
- Pharmacists who are not certified to administer immunizations by SED
- Midwives who are not certified to administer immunizations by SED
- Dentists
- Dental hygienists
- Podiatrists
- Emergency Medical Technicians
- Advanced Emergency Medical Technicians
- Students in eligible education programs (medicine, nursing, PA, pharmacy, dentistry, podiatry, and midwifery)
Fringe benefit is that volunteers get the vaccine early.
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Our neighbors told us they are scheduled to get the vaccine on Tuesday. They are school teachers. (IL)
While I truly do appreciate your efforts, @KSM, the states of Alaska, Maine and Texas surely have remote areas, but they are all doing among the best jobs at vaccination. Even Louisiana is doing comparatively well. I have to conclude the difference is in local leadership or a lack thereof.
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I am depressed.
Despite all the shiny fancy signups and state websites, NJ and NY are having problems. There are not enough dose for those who have appointments. I have been trying to get an appointment for my husband, who is 1B in New Jersey, and it’s impossible. We are both on the state vaccine registry. It’s probably a useless exercise in PR.
NJ Governor Murphy (from his Twitter): " Governors were given assurances by that we’d receive additional vaccines from the national reserve for our seniors, health care workers, and first responders. We need answers for why this stockpile doesn’t exist and our allocations have been reduced from what we expected."
My interpretation of this info it that we can forget about getting vaccinated anytime soon.
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Have you registered at NJ’s mega sites (Rockaway & Edison)? You may want to show up at one of those mega sites at the end of day to see if they have extra vaccines left over. NYC Javit Center is taking people without appts if they have room.
Give Rite Aide vaccine website a try too because they are not listed on the government’s website. My mom got vaccinated there.
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I spoke with my relative tonight who is a retired doctor in MA and who tried to sign up to volunteer to administer the vaccine to others. No one is responding to their emails. Discouraging.
RiteAid is not taking any appointments. We are constantly checking and checking. We are “registered” on the NJ Covid site and got emails designating our category (1b for DH and 1C for me) but it’s useless because there is no availability. My county website has crashed.
It really doesn’t matter if you are 1b or 2a, but what matters is how many others are in your group or in the groups in front of you. Colorado is on 1b and most in 1a (medical front line) have been offered a vaccination. But group 1b is HUGE. I think there are 2 MILLION people in the group, including all over 65 (recently added; before it was 70+), all medical not included in 1a (dentists, staff, non-direct contact medical), EMS, funeral directors, firefighters, police, correctional workers.
They just keep adding to 1b. Now they want to add teachers, front line workers like grocery store workers, public health, food and agriculture. With this method of just adding more to the group, we’ll never get out of 1b.
I find it surprising that EMS wasn’t included in 1A, don’t you? It is in my state.
CT is also in 1B. But they are actually doing phase in for 1B so they don’t have 1.2 million people trying to make appointments at one time. First up are folks 75 and over. They haven’t announced who is next, but my bet would be teachers. But police and folks like that are also Phase 1B. I think the last group in this phase will be folks 65 and over.
EMS was also in phase 1A here.
CT is also setting up a bunch of larger vaccine administration sites, some have opened for appointments already. That also should help.
The local 1B subtiers here include police/fire/hazmat and then corrections officers and homeless shelter workers before teachers, which I agree with.
Schools can operate virtually. Public safety can’t.
(There is also the hypocrisy that if schools don’t have transmission – which the f2f advocates at any and all costs! yell about – then why would teachers who are in schools where there is no spread be pushed ahead of people who DO work f2f? )
I know the answer to that…to politically pacify the unions. That being said, I DO think that there is spread in schools, and it is just too hard to quantify that spread because there is so much asymptomatic transmission. But it does seem hypocritical.
In NYC, 1 in every 4 people being vaccinated live outside of the city. Which makes sense as many of the frontline workers commute in from NJ, Long Island, CT, and Westchester and they get the vaccines at work. But dosages are allocated by population. IDK if that is a federal or state decision but it’s a bad one, especially after all the promises of outreach for populations hit the hardest. Very frustrating.
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It is my understanding that the federal dose allocation is based on state population, so NYS is receiving shots for residents outside NYC as well. The internal allocation within NYS was up to state officials to decide.
Check out all medical centers, like Atlantic Health (Morristown Hospital is part of it) or Robert Wood Johnson, for appts. Many medical and health organizations are getting vaccines and they are not necessary published on the government websites.
I am in the NYU Langone group, but I am not 65 yet. They emailed me to let me know they would notify me when it is my turn. Of course, I am not going to wait for that.
It is unfortunate we need to spend so much time in trying to get vaccinated. Wish it was more organized.
But is NYS receiving shots for residents of NJ and CT? It must be an issue for any metro area sitting on/near a state border.
In NY, the list of workers in 1b is insanely long. There are probably 25 groups on that list. I get that ferry employees, DMV workers, and Port Authority employees have public-facing jobs (well, many do) but if we want to prevent deaths and free up hospital beds, elderly people should be ahead of them in line. I definitely think that is a union/political call, as mentioned above.