County Leaders Spar With State Over Vaccine Rollout

SOUTHEASTERN PA — After a meeting with the Pennsylvania Department of Health on Sunday, officials in counties in southeastern Pennsylvania say they still are largely in the dark as to why they have received a significantly lower allocation of doses than other, less-populated parts of the state, and what's being done to remedy the inequity.

A joint statement from leaders in Montgomery, Bucks, Delaware and Chester counties called the meeting "disappointing and frustrating."

"There remains a lack of transparency on the total doses that have come to our counties from every source," the statement reads. "Therefore, we have no way to assess how the data presented to us today was calculated, and how those calculations have been used to determine the number of doses that have been allocated to our four counties."

The meeting was held via Zoom on Sunday with Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam. It had originally been scheduled for last week after repeated requests from the counties, but was delayed.

Beam said last week that it was rescheduled so the state's analysis of the issue would be as "robust as possible." But during the Sunday meeting, the counties said that they were "not given any indication of the plan" to make up the shortfall of doses to the southeast, nor was there clarification given on how the errors occurred in the first place.

Patch has reached out to the Department of Health for comment on the meeting.

According to a recent analysis by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Montgomery County has received just 17,667 doses of vaccine per 100,000 residents. This places the county 20th in the state, even though it has the second-highest population after Philadelphia. Bucks, Delaware and Chester counties have similar disparities.

In addition to questions at the county level, state legislators have joined in lobbying the state for more answers and more clarity.

"For those of us on the ground in Southeastern PA it has been clear from the start that we are not receiving our fair share of vaccine," State Sen. Maria Collett (D-PA) said last Friday. "Our counties have been among the hardest and longest hit by this virus, and our residents deserve answers from the Department of Health."

On Monday, the counties called on Beam and the Department of Health to do several things to remedy the situation.

They asked for a publicly available chart to show how much vaccine has been received each week from all sources, including the federal pharmacy partnerships. The biggest thing that has been repeated for weeks now is transparency from the state on its"county index" — the algorithm used to determine allocations, and the mechanism that is ostensibly at fault for causing the misallocation.

The counties also want details on when they will receive additional doses to make up the shortchange in recent weeks.

Tangential to that, local officials are also concerned about ensuring vaccine providers do not begin to vaccinate anyone in the 1B category before all of 1A has been immunized. The counties want assurance from the state that providers will be policed on that front.

The state has administered 2,009,209 partial vaccinations and 939,327 full vaccinations as of Monday morning.

For more information on the COVID-19 vaccination in Pennsylvania, visit Patch's information hub.