Bucks Co. COVID-19 Vaccine Waiting Line Grows To 200K

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — Bucks County officials on Thursday stressed the importance of patience as the county does not have enough doses to vaccinate everyone yet.

As soon as the county can get enough doses, the roughly 200,000 people who have signed up to get vaccinated through the county's pre-registration site will start to receive phone calls or emails to get scheduled for an appointment, Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo said.

"Remember in April when you couldn't find hand sanitizer anywhere?" Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia asked. "Now it's everywhere."

Officials hope the same will become true of the COVID-19 vaccine, which is currently only being made available to Pennsylvanians who fall under Phase 1a of the vaccine rollout.

"This is not just a Bucks County issue," Commissioner Bob Harvie said. "We are not getting the amount of vaccine we need."

In the initial stages of the vaccine rollout, the county was receiving 2,000 vaccine doses per week, officials said. That number increased to 3,000 this week, and Health Director David Damsker appeared optimistic that number will increase by 5,000 per week by the end of the month.

The county also announced Thursday that it will open three vaccination sites to the public on Tuesday at three Bucks County Community College campuses in Bristol, Newtown and East Rockhill townships. Health officials will be able to administer about 200 doses at each site per day, with plans to increase that number to 500 per day by the end of the month when more supply becomes available. Vaccinations are by appointment only; walk-ins will be turned away.

Health officials expressed some optimism that coronavirus cases will continue to decline. Bucks County averaged fewer than 200 new coronavirus cases per day last week, and COVID-19 related deaths and hospitalizations continue to decline in the county, Damsker noted.

"The numbers are looking really good, and that's not just here in Bucks County — that's across the state, across the country," Damsker said. "As we ramp up the vaccines, it's a very nice confluence of cases going down and vaccines going up. That's the combination we're all looking for to put this in the rearview mirror at some point."

More than 35,800 people have received partial vaccinations in Bucks County, while 13,792 people have received full vaccinations as of Friday morning, according to data from the state health department.

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