PA Officials Give Vaccine Update As Dose Shipments Increase

PENNSYLVANIA — Leaders in Pennsylvania touted slow but steady progress in the vaccination effort on Tuesday, addressing the challenges with vaccinating underserved communities and initiatives underway to improve access to doses.

The state received another increase in vaccine shipments this week, with 25,000 more first doses and 16,000 more second doses received this week than last week.

While these numbers still leave the state in a vaccine deficit — and unable to presently open up all of the regional community vaccination clinics they would like to — they remain optimistic they'll continue to receive more and more each week.

Last week, the Department of Health issued an order stating that all individuals in the 1A category in the state must be scheduled for their vaccine appointment by March 31 (not March 28, as they previously said). It's part of a newly announced timeline to meet President Biden's goal to have the vaccine available to all Americans by May.

"Some of those appointments may go past March, but (we're) getting those appointments scheduled just so we can be we're working with providers to get folks in the door," Senior Health Advisor Lindsey Mauldin said.

Certain individuals in the 1B category, including police officers, firefighters, and grocery store workers will begin receiving the Johnson & Johnson single dose vaccine at the end of March. That's also the date by which all school employees are expected to be vaccinated.

"Before we move into 1B, we're going to make sure all folks in 1A are vaccinated, or at least scheduled for their vaccination," she added.

Transportation challenges

While the focus of the Department of Health's Tuesday update was their efforts to address equity and access to the vaccine, they acknowledged ongoing issues with transportation.

"We recognize that there are challenges with folks getting to vaccine appointments," she said, and added that the state was working with the Department of Aging on the issue. However, she did not elaborate on what specifically was being done

Brian Lentes, who is the director of the Office of Operational Excellence, said that officials were looking at demographic, economic, and health data to learn where these issues were most prevalent.

Improving access and fighting skepticism

"Longstanding systemic health and social inequities" play a huge role in COVID-19 risk, Lentes said.

The state uses 2019 US Census data, health system and patient databases, and the CDC's Tiberius system to estimate the size of vulnerable populations across the state. This helps inform both distribution and where outreach efforts are needed. Along with reduced transportation options, poverty, lower education levels, and denser living situations are all associated with greater risk to the virus, he said.

De Neice Welch, a community leader and senior pastor at Allegheny County's Bidwell Presbyterian Church, said that these efforts were crucial to improving vaccination rates.

"We're fighting against generalized suspicion against the healthcare system, and fighting against the history of unethical experimentation on the Black community," she said.

Welch, who has now received two doses, said that she had initially decided not to receive the vaccine due to a lingering lack of trust, but changed her mind after speaking with health professionals to determine "fact from myth."

Lentes acknowledged that the state's data on who had been vaccinated thus far — the race and ethnicity information publicly available on the PA COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboard tracker — was incomplete.

"It is a challenge to have complete data," Lentes said, noting that it's something they're trying to improve. Specifically, he said, the state is trying to enforce that vaccine providers submit demographic information on who they've vaccinated before they receive their next shipment of doses.

New mass vaccine clinic coming to Pocono Raceway

The Lehigh Valley Health Network announced that they will hold their next COVID-19 mass vaccination clinic on Saturday, March 20.

The one-day clinic will run from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Future sites and clinics will be added as more shipments of the vaccine are received.

Organizers are hopeful that they can vaccinate 3,000 people that day. Only 1A individuals can book appointments.

It's the latest in a series of large clinics held by private healthcare providers statewide, with previous large clinics being held in locations like Dorney Park and the King of Prussia Mall parking lot.

Registration is available through the health network.

Questions linger in the southeast

Officials did not provide an answer when pressed on when regional community vaccine sites may open in the southeast, nor did they answer when asked about how many individuals these sites may be able to vaccinate in a day.

Mauldin said that "people in the southeast are receiving the vaccine at or above the statewide average," reiterating a comment that has been made by Gov. Wolf over the past few weeks when pressed on allocations to that region.

Leaders in the southeast maintain that this metric is not a reliable indicator to how the region has been treated. They say that overall allocations per 100,000 residents, not administrations per 100,000 residents, is a better indicator; the allocation number shows that the southeast is receiving significantly fewer doses per 100,000 than the rest of the state.

Officials in Montgomery, Bucks, Chester, and Delaware counties continue to call for transparency in the algorithm the state uses to determine allocations.

For full information about getting a coronavirus vaccine in Pennsylvania, visit Patch's information hub.