State Plans Southeast PA Mass Vaccination Site Despite Pushback

PENNSYLVANIA — State health officials remain committed to opening up a new regional mass vaccine site somewhere in southeastern Pennsylvania, despite pleas from local leaders to instead focus vaccine allocations on existing county sites which they say have significant untapped capabilities.

Leaders in Montgomery, Bucks, Delaware, and Chester counties are concerned that creating a single regional site would mean that most people would have to drive some distance to the site, complicating a situation which has already left tens of thousands frustrated and impatient.

Southeastern leaders "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," Montgomery County Val 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.

Other counties have echoed these concerns. Bucks County announced plans for a sixth county-run clinic this week.

“Now we just need lots of doses of vaccine,” Commissioners Diane M. Ellis-Marseglia said Wednesday, noting that Bucks received 9,080 doses last week. Similar to Montgomery County, this marked an increase, but still fell well short of what they needed to run their sites at full capacity.

Arkoosh said on Wednesday that Beam will meet with the counties again in the coming days to address their request to consider an alternative. But on Thursday, Beam sounded sure they were moving forward with the single site, stating that they "allowed the southeast to pick a geographical location that best suits them" for the clinic.

"We have formed a bridge to bring consensus to our decision-making," Beam said, saying that these regional sites were agreed upon by the bipartisan legislative task force that advises vaccine policy. "When working together, we built consensus around mass vaccination sites to bring speed and volume" to the immunization process.

Beam did not directly address concerns about a regional site causing issues for those who may have to drive an hour or more to get a dose. She defended the plan by saying that the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency offered a deeper level of support, and that resources were available to run high volume sites at off-hours, and for an indefinite period of time into the future.

She also said the state did not want the single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine — which will be allocated for these regional sites — to "just get flushed" into the existing vaccine workflow.

Beam did repeat multiple times on Thursday that the Department of Health was committed to finding ways to leverage local knowledge; this is why she wants southeastern Pennsylvania leaders to decide where the site should go, while the state provides the resources.

"These two things should in parallel," she said, meaning local knowledge and state capabilities.

It's the latest piece of tension between southeastern Pennsylvania leaders and the Department of Health, who have sparred publicly over the fairness of the allocation of doses to the state's most densely populated region, as well as a lack of transparency in the algorithm that determines these allocations.

Regional mass vaccine sites, run by the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, have been a part of the state's plans all along. This week, state officials pointed to the simplicity and success of recently opened sites in Lancaster and Lebanon counties. Those are largely rural counties, however, with significantly different geography and existing vaccine infrastructure than the southeast.

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