New partnership will let Mecklenburg distribute vaccines faster, county says
Two days after surpassing 70,000 total COVID-19 cases, Mecklenburg County announced plans on Monday for new COVID-19 vaccine partnerships, giving out second doses of the vaccine for the first time.
As of Saturday night, Mecklenburg County Public Health has given out over 3,700 doses of COVID-19 vaccines — and more than 400 people are scheduled to get a vaccine at Bojangles Coliseum Monday, county medical director Meg Sullivan said.
Some people vaccinated by the county are now ready for a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Sullivan said.
This week, the county will partner with Mecklenburg EMS Agency to give out second doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for EMTs and paramedics who received their first doses three weeks ago, Sullivan said.
And starting next week, the county will partner with StarMed to give out second doses of the vaccines. More details will be released online soon.
Anyone who got their first dose of the vaccine through the county will get information on the StarMed partnership within 24 hours, Sullivan said.
The county has already vaccinated more than 1,000 people in the first group of Phase 1b — people age 75 and up. And more than 4,000 people in that age group have scheduled vaccine appointments with the county, Sullivan said.
Mecklenburg will continue vaccinating people at Bojangles Coliseum, Sullivan said. Moving many second dose appointments to StarMed locations will allow the county to distribute vaccines as quickly as possible, she said.
Atrium’s chief medical officer, Dr. Gary Little, said the hospital system has vaccinated most of its employees who fall into Phase 1a, which includes health care workers at high risk for exposure to the coronavirus.
At Novant Health, just over 15,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccines have been given to eligible Phase 1a employees as of Saturday, said Dr. Sid Fletcher, Novant’s chief clinical officer. Around 2,000 Novant employees have received their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, he said.
Novant has already administered about 1,400 vaccines to Phase 1b patients — roughly half of those shots were given in the Charlotte-area, Fletcher said.
Rising trends
The hope provided by increased access to COVID-19 vaccines is tempered by rising case numbers and quickly filling hospital beds in Mecklenburg.
“Mecklenburg County is not improving,” county health director Gibbie Harris said Monday. “Our numbers continue to rise, both in terms of positivity rate, our case rate and the number of deaths we’re seeing in our community.”
For two days in a row, Mecklenburg has recorded more than 1,000 new daily COVID-19 cases — only the second and third time the county hit that mark since March.
On Saturday, Mecklenburg reported 1,027 new COVID-19 cases, surpassing 70,000 total coronavirus cases for the first time, according to state numbers.
And on Sunday, the county saw 1,309 cases — a new record.
Meanwhile, a Charlotte Observer analysis of public federal health data shows that roughly 90% of intensive care unit beds in Mecklenburg hospitals were occupied at the end of December.
Throughout the pandemic, local hospital systems have been preparing for surges in coronavirus cases. But COVID-19 hospitalizations are now higher than ever before, and hospitals are at “a critical time,” local hospital leaders have told the Observer.
“While we have begun to administer the long-awaited vaccine, it’s imperative our communities understand that we are not out of the woods yet with community spread at an all-time high,” Novant Health said in a statement last week.
Atrium and Novant Health both say there is more the hospitals can do to increase bed capacity, but staffing limits provide a bigger hurdle.
This story was originally published January 11, 2021 at 2:37 PM.
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