Vaccine supply ‘bottleneck’ complicates expanding to ages 65+ in Charlotte
As the head of Health and Human Services in Washington called for states to start vaccinating a younger group of adults against COVID-19, an infectious disease expert in North Carolina’s largest city says there’s simply not enough supply to do that.
“We are eager to get everyone vaccinated as quickly as possible. We understand the anxiety that people in our communities have. We get the phone calls, we see those patients at our clinics are asking for the vaccine,” Novant Health’s Dr. David Priest said in a call with reporters Tuesday morning.
“Our primary barrier is managing the supply allocation,” Priest said. “The state allocates our supply based on what they’re allocated from the federal government.”
Novant Health is the second-largest hospital system in Charlotte. Both Atrium Health and Novant are distributing vaccines to front-line health care workers. The county health department is administering vaccines for emergency medical workers, those in the community age 75 or older and residents of long-term care facilities.
Priest said Novant learns of its vaccine allotment around Thursday each week. He said the numbers have remained consistent — but he hopes for an increase.
“We’re prepared to expand the vaccine program when it does,” he said. “We understand the frustration people are feeling because we have the same frustrations as we wait for vaccine supply. We’re using the vaccine as we get it week to week. We’re not holding anything back. We will be very glad when we have more vaccine to give our patients.”
Priest also said there might be a change in vaccine allotment in February after the presidential administration changes hands.
To achieve herd immunity by the summer, Priest said, vaccination numbers would have to significantly increase nationwide. According to the American Hospital Association, the country would have to vaccinate 1.8 million people each day from now until May.
In Charlotte, hundreds of people age 75 and older are being vaccinated each day at Bojangles Coliseum. County officials on Monday announced the health department will partner with StarMed to administer second doses of the vaccine for emergency medical workers, the Charlotte Observer previously reported.
Data current through Tuesday from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services show more than 15,000 people in Mecklenburg County, most of whom are front-line workers, have been given the first shot of a vaccine. Statewide, nearly 174,000 residents have received the first dose of the vaccine, and 20,608 have completed the vaccine series.
Priest said Novant has vaccinated about 1,400 eligible patients so far and has given 17,228 vaccine doses to team members working across all its locations — 2,555 of those a second dose.
Vaccine for younger adults?
HHS Secretary Alex Azar said on ABC news Tuesday morning, “Everything is now available to our states and our health care providers.” He said the federal government is no longer holding back doses of COVID-19 vaccines that initially were intended for giving people the necessary second shots.
Azar said the federal health agency is also “calling on our governors to now vaccinate people age 65 and older and under age 65 with a comorbidity because we have got to expand the group.”
But there’s not enough supply to accommodate that expansion right now, Priest said.
“There will be the same bottleneck in terms of supply. We’re glad they feel like they wanna move forward and get other people in the process but until we have more allotment of vaccine, we’ll be scheduling patients, but end up scheduling farther and farther out,” he said. “In general, we support getting everybody the vaccine, but as it stands today, we won’t have enough to accommodate that extra group of people.”
Earlier this month, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced he’s deploying the National Guard to help with vaccine distribution.
“Cooper’s National Guard activation comes as data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that North Carolinians are receiving their first dose of vaccine at a slower rate than much of the rest of the country,” the News & Observer reported on Jan. 5.
Nikki Nissen, Novant chief nursing officer, said that because of a limited supply, Novant patient vaccinations are by appointment only. Eligible patients with a Novant primary care physician should be receiving letters about scheduling their vaccination, and patients can register online.
“I want to reiterate that supply is limited and we can only administer what we’re allocated from the state,” she said. “But despite supply limitations, we want to assure patients they will not miss the opportunity to be vaccinated.”
This story was originally published January 12, 2021 at 12:18 PM.
