AZ Vaccine Distribution Is Not Equitable, Pima County Says

TUCSON, AZ — Pima County is calling on Arizona to distribute its coronavirus vaccine supply more equitably to counties not named Maricopa.

Dr. Francisco Garcia, Pima County's chief medical officer, said at a Friday news conference that the county has the ability to vaccinate 10,000 people per day but does not have the doses to do so.

"What would make sense in Pima County is for us to have a reliable number of vaccines allocated that is proportional to our population," Garcia said.

He added that the county's accelerated vaccination plan would require about 100,000 doses per week. The state is sending 29,000 for next week alone. The county initially received an allotment of 107,000 doses and has put approximately 59,000 into people's arms as of Friday.

Garcia said he is "thankful" for the new allotment, which is double what the weekly shipment has been in weeks past, but added that it is still "woefully insufficient."

The Arizona Department of Health Services has set up two mass vaccination sites catering to Arizona residents from any county; both are located in Phoenix. The two sites have expanded the eligible age group to people 65 and older while counties struggle to vaccinate all residents 75 and older.

A spokesperson for the state department did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

Steve Elliot, the department's communications director, told the Arizona Daily Star it wants to see vaccines reach everyone. “We want to make the vaccine accessible to as many people as possible,” he told the newspaper. “As we’ve said, we want to see vaccines reaching people, not sitting in freezers.”

The county on Thursday allocated just 2,100 doses to its more rural areas. In a memo to the Pima County Board of Supervisors, county Administrator Chuck Huckelberry seconded Garcia's sentiment that the county's capability far surpasses vaccine availability.

"Vaccine availability from the state and federal government remains the sole rate-limiting factor impacting vaccine coverage in Pima County," Huckelberry wrote in a memo to the Board of Supervisors. "Due to our limited allocation of vaccine we are unable to disseminate the vaccine more broadly and are very cautious about not causing excessive demand or expectations that local partners cannot meet."

Garcia said the county is doing everything it can to prove it can move vaccines into people's arms, but he knows that this mass vaccination is unprecedented. "Public health has never had to vaccinate the sheer number of people with such little planning," he said.

Arizona reported 8,099 new coronavirus cases and 229 additional deaths Friday as the state continued to be one of the country's hot spots.