Things seem to be moving slowly here in the Seattle area. My kid, who works in an ER but is not technically a hospital employee, couldn’t get an immunization until this week.
I think admin people in medical offices are included with the entire group, so if they are 1b, you are 1b. I have two friends who work for a nursing home/long term care company. One is in HR, one in marketing, but both in corporate office not in the facilities. Both got to be on the 1b list, vaccinated long before my 85 year old mother who also has cancer but lives at home. Mother is also a 1b but got no notice to sign up (at a Safeway or Walgreens) so didn’t know about it and these women did so got the early appointments.
Seems like they could prioritize health care workers in something like this order:
Work with known COVID-19 patients.
Work with unscreened-for-COVID-19 patients (e.g. emergency or urgent care, or doing COVID-19 testing).
Work with screened-for-COVID-19 patients (who have done pre-visit quarantine and testing before a scheduled procedure, although that does not stop all infections from getting through, due to lapses in patient carefulness).
a. Work cannot be done with masked patients (e.g. dental care).
b. Work can be done with masked patients.
Work in shared indoor facility but not with patient contact.
Work remotely.
But then the added overhead of tracking all of this may end up delaying the overall process of getting every health care worker the vaccine.
The current requirements and complexities are delaying the overall process of getting the vaccine out. (NYC is a case in point.)
If xx% of a health care workers decline, start jabbing the next available arms, such as the elderly in 1b. It makes no sense to hold back 1b until say, 99% (or whatever the goal is), of 1a is vaccinated. The faster we jab arms, the faster the deaths decline.
Agreed. HCW had 2 weeks of priority for the vaccine, then it was opened up to more groups. Doses were reserved for nursing homes, but clinics opened for over 65 at the same time.
Have you checked with your dr? I had my physical yesterday and my Dr said she will be emailing patients as when they will be eligible. She said she is getting updated daily on the progress of vaccinations.
My husband got an email today from his primary Dr (different practice) and his dr said they will have the Moderna vaccine and are presently giving to health care workers and nursing home residents. They thought they will start those 75 and over by the end of this month.
OTOH my FIL has heard nothing from his MD.
I read an article today about a few hospitals and pharmacies who are getting blowback about giving vaccines to just anyone if they have extra at the end of the day. One example was a guy and his friends who just happened to be in a grocery store at the end of the day and the pharmacist had 2 thawed doses available and they’d be wasted if 2 people in the store didn’t use them. Right place, right time. Another couple found out the Walgreens had a few doses and ran up there right away. That was a case of knowing the right person (I think a neighbor told them).
But I see the problem. There were also some tales of hospitals letting many employees and others call their family and relatives because too much vaccine had been thawed. Real or just an ‘accident’ that they thawed too much? I can see where the authorities don’t want to reward miscalculations to get around the 1a, 1b, 2a, etc. order.
I say just do as many as possible and never waste a dose if someone, even someone in the very last group of “and then everyone else”, is standing there ready to get it.
I agree with you. Unfortunately, there will be abuse in the system and it should be discouraged and punished if discovered but ultimately they need to vaccinate and not hold on to the doses in order to sure no one skips the line.
It should be criminal to have so many doses available for so long and they are not able to use them.
I’m in Michigan. Our governor has opened up the vaccine to those over 65 this week.
My 80+ neighbors were able to register through our local health department and schedule vaccines for next week. Unfortunately, the health department is receiving less of the vaccine than they were promised so some of the people scheduled will have to be postponed (via our local tv station). My neighbors said that it was easy to register and schedule on line.
My primary physician office sent an email. They are designed as a vaccine sight. However, they have received no information about the vaccine.
So to the people in Michigan who are eligible, I would continue to check with your local health departments. It seems that they are receiving some vaccine.
I say just get vaccines into as many people as possible. In NY both Cuomo and de Blasio are trying too politically correct (making sure no one jumped the line) that we have only administered 25% vaccines delivered to us. They should already have vaccine facilities set up with names of people to get vaccinated BEFORE vaccines were delivered. At this time, NY doesn’t even have a centralized portal for people to register for the vaccine. They are scrambling now, but a lot of time wasted.
I think once Biden releases the vaccines that the government has in storage as he announced yesterday, states will start to further ramp up administration and make it more available to others. Someone I know in NY is getting it as part of 1a and she works in a school, so they seem to be broadening who falls in 1a.
Also, separate from NY I just read on my college daughter’s school website that they have their own metrics for administering the vaccine. If you’re a student with certain medical conditions over age 16 you can get vaccinated right now. She doesn’t have any of these conditions, but if the school is continuously receiving the vaccine then it sounds like they may actually be able to keep going through to expand their groups and vaccinate more and more people. One would think their next round of vaccines would be employees and students considered essential workers (so one might construe that as pretty much all staff, so probably anyone 18-64 not yet vaccinated since they already did >65) and then students next. Which would be phenomenal as that doesn’t sound so far down the line but maybe it is further than it seems. I sure hope not. I worry more about her than me right now.
I hope you are right but if things speed up I really doubt it has anything to do with releasing the doses they were saving up to give the second doses. From the info I saw yesterday, there were few places that had given more than about 25% of the doses they had available.
I agree. A lot more has to happen than just releasing the doses. A better plan, people to administer the vaccine, the other materials needed to administer it, which is part of why he plans to enact the Defense Production Act. But a better national plan needs to happen so these vaccines can be given in stadiums, large parking lots, etc. No different than how people are getting the covid tests or picking up food for those in need, etc. My friend just went through a drive through facility here in our county yesterday, so it is happening and working, so hopefully things can speed up and become a lot more efficient, because they will be dealing with 2x as many people needing it each day as people need that second dose now plus the people getting the first dose at the same time.
Not sure why we need a federal plan-many states are rolling out the vaccine efficiently, and in those that do not it is often a political failure to distribute vaccines they already have received. I am not clear on what federal authorizations you are waiting for-states can use any available state property as vaccine locations, and there would be little federal land that would be helpful. Public health staff and first responder staff are already employed. Syringes are available. Competent state leaders are well into the vaccination process.
The Maine CDC director held a press conference yesterday. He conducts one at least twice a week. He’s awesome - there is even a Facebook “fan club” for him.
He is frustrated at the number of doses the state is given. Feds had promised to ramp up the numbers. This week, we got only 100 more doses than last week. Next week, we’re getting only 100 more than this week. Maine can’t tell residents when they can expect to get vaccinated when they have no idea from week to week how many doses they are going to get. The state has one of the best distribution rates in the country. At the rate they’ve been going, I calculated it would take at least 65 weeks to vaccinate us all. And that’s only 1.3 million people total. It’s discouraging. I will be in the last group.
I am not even sure why Maine is getting Covid vaccines at this stage. I understand the rationale but it would be much better to direct the vaccines to our densely populated areas first.
What? We are seeing anywhere from 500-700 new cases every day. Deaths every day, too. We have the oldest population by percentage in the country. Of course we need the vaccine, too…