PA Vaccine Rollout Like 'The Hunger Games,' Montco Leaders Say

NORRISTOWN, PA — Discontent continues to simmer at the county level, as the Pennsylvania Department of Health has still not provided Montgomery County with enough vaccine doses to maximize its infrastructure, nor even what the county believes is its fair share of allocations, they said on Wednesday.

While the state continues its bold messaging regarding its upcoming timeline — to start 1B vaccinations by the end of March and to have the vaccine available to everyone by May — Montgomery County still has more than 89,000 people on its 1A wait list.

"It's unfortunate that it's become the hunger games for this vaccination process," Commissioner Ken Lawrence said Wednesday. "We are very frustrated by it...it's unfortunate that some are waiting. It's unfortunate that some have had to travel to other counties or to other states."

"We are incredibly frustrated," Commissioner Val Arkoosh said. "We have conveyed as clear as we possibly can that we believe we have been shortchanged on vaccine."

The state disputes this narrative, and uses different metrics than the county to measure what "fairness" in allocation in means. While the counties consistently cites allocation of doses per 100,000 residents, which is extremely lopsided in favor of rural parts of the state, the state always cites the vaccination rate per 100,000 residents, which is far more equitable.

"The Commissioner’s statement on Montgomery County being shortchanged is blatantly false," Department of Health Press Secretary Maggi Barton told Patch. "The distribution plan is working. What is true is that the county’s vaccination rate is still above average and Pennsylvania's vaccination pace is accelerating and outperforming its peers."

The state has promised the county that it will continue to receive an allocation of 5,580 doses of the Pfizer vaccine each week for the next month. While this guarantee has allowed the county to schedule out its appointments a little further in advance, it is also still leaving "lots of unused capacity" across the county's three vaccination sites, Arkoosh said.

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The state had previously promised the county that they would not move into 1B until all counties had received enough vaccine to complete their 1A administrations. The state said they're going to begin some of those 1B administrations, for police officers and some other frontline workers, at the end of March. It would seem like there is not nearly enough time for Montgomery County to get through 1A by then.

There are 89,325 remaining on 1A wait list, while 134,484 appointment notifications have been sent out. The county is currently working through preregistrations made on Jan. 31.

The proposed state-run regional vaccine site is another point of ongoing contention between the southeastern counties and the state. The state wants to use single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine to open those sites, while the counties say that the single dose vaccine should be given to existing county sites to vaccinate the most vulnerable residents who might have trouble getting two shots. That includes the homebound, the homeless, those with varying job hours, and others.

"We have been ready and waiting now for weeks (to administer more vaccine," Arkoosh said. "Every drill we've ever done...this is how it was supposed to go. The county sets up the sites, the state provides the vaccine. We're ready to go, and we're still waiting for more doses."

All told, the county has given 134,282 partial vaccinations and 84,449 full vaccinations. That's about 32.5 percent of all county residents over the age of 16, and does not count additional doses given out by private providers like pharmacies.

To register to receive the vaccine in Montgomery County, see here.