At Current Rate, Vaccinating Montco’s 1A Would Take 4-5 Months

NORRISTOWN, PA -- Vaccinating all of the remaining individuals in Montgomery County’s 1A category could take four to five more months, if the county continues to receive doses at a similar rate, officials said on Wednesday.

There are 127,718 individuals remaining to be vaccinated in 1A in the county, and more individuals sign up every day, even as more are vaccinated every day. The state wants all appointments to be booked by the end of March, and state officials have said that they expect an increase in shipments by the end of the month. But that dramatic increase has not yet been seen.

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“At this point, we do need to schedule vaccines along the lines of the doses we’ve been allocated,” Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh said Wednesday," noting that "we can give them appointments, but it's going to take time" to actually work through that list at the current rate.

The county still needs way more vaccine than it’s been receiving, and it’s been receiving less than it’s been requesting. Last week, it requested 10,530 doses of Pfizer, and received just 5,850. This does mark an increase of about a thousand doses from last week, and it allowed the county to open up a new vaccine clinic this week in Willow Grove. But more is needed, and the county and state continue to disagree over the fairness of allocations to the southeastern region.

For next week, the county requested the maximum allowable amount, 23,400 doses. Arkoosh says the county’s mass vaccination sites have an even greater capacity than that. The county will know for sure later this week how many doses they will receive.

While the state's recently announced timelines and orders suggest they have confidence in that increase in doses — and President Biden has said that enough doses will be available for all Americans by May — there remain significant shortages.

"I would love to meet that goal," Arkoosh said of the recently announced timeline. "I believe we have the capacity to deliver enough vaccines to meet that goal. The one piece that is not under control here at the county is how much vaccine we receive...we're very hopeful we will receive our fair share of that vaccine."

RELATED: Here's Where You're At In The Vaccine Line In Montgomery County

In the meantime, delays continue. A total of 83,442 appointment notifications have been sent out, and the county is currently working through appointments made on Jan. 18, they said on Wednesday. Residents can see where they stand in line by referencing the county’s numbers, updated daily.

Local officials said they met again with the state Department of Health on Wednesday to review plans for a proposed state-run mass vaccine clinic in the southeast. Gov. Wolf had previously said that the southeastern part of the state could receive some of these clinics, but Arkoosh said she'd prefer those doses instead be allocated to the counties individually.

Representatives from Montgomery, Bucks, Chester, and Delaware counties "presented an alternative to a single facility" to Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam on Wednesday.

"All four counties have unused capacity that currently exists to deliver vaccines," Arkoosh said. Montgomery County's new site in Willow Grove, for example, set to open Friday, could administer as many as 10,000 doses a day. It just needs increased shipments.

"Using that capacity will in no way slow down or hinder" the existing vaccinations, Arkoosh added.

Beam will meet with the counties again in the coming days to address their request.

The county has partially vaccinated 115,037 individuals, and fully vaccinated 71,930 individuals. That means about 27.7 percent of the county’s over-16 population has been immunized thus far, an increase of about four percent from this point one week ago.