Did science tell us to vaccinate low risk groups before high risk groups....?

Lunacy that 49 and under have received 61% of vaccinations and 65 up have only received 8%. Science.

You beat me.

Assume that distribution is weighed heavily because of the focus on HCW and it will go up quickly for 75+. Hopefully.

statefan91 said:

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Assume that distribution is weighed heavily because of the focus on HCW and it will go up quickly for 75+. Hopefully.

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Actually, it is not due to this, but you would think so. Some doses have been reserved for use in LTC facilities and they are not available for use by healthcare and the general public. The issue is Walgreens and CVS seem to be slow in ramping up vaccinations in these LTC facilities.

Here is today's update for vaccines in NC from the Bloomberg data tracker and the CDC data tracker:

Vaccine Doses Distributed: 498,450
Vaccine Doses Administered: 123,598
% of Available Doses Administered: 24.8% (Declined from 27.9%)*

*Supply increased by 103,350 doses reported on Monday and doses administered increased by 13,338 doses, reported on Tuesday on the NCDHHS website. This is why the percentage of available doses administered declined.

Based on what is happening in other states, there are likely some lags in reporting of the LTC vaccinations by CVS and Walgreens, so the percentage is likely not as low as I posted yesterday (8% of available vaccines used that are allocated to LTC facilities).

As far as other states, here are the current Top 10 with regards to percentage of available doses administered as reported by the Bloomberg Vaccine Data Tracker:

South Dakota (64.5%)
New Hampshire (56.0%)
North Dakota (54.8%)
Connecticut (54.7%)
Tennessee (51.5%)
Maine (50.7%)
Iowa (50.0%)
Ohio (48.8%)
Rhode Island (47.1%)
Vermont (47.0%)

I excluded the District of Columbia from the list of states. They would be in the Top 10 with 47.9% of available doses used.

North Carolina's percentage of vaccine allocation administered ranks them in the bottom 10 with regards to the vaccinations, just behind Alabama with 24.9% of available vaccines administered.

Daviewolf83 said:

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Here is today's update for vaccines in NC from the Bloomberg data tracker and the CDC data tracker:

Vaccine Doses Distributed: 498,450
Vaccine Doses Administered: 123,598
% of Available Doses Administered: 24.8% (Declined from 27.9%)*

*Supply increased by 103,350 doses reported on Monday and doses administered increased by 13,338 doses, reported on Tuesday on the NCDHHS website. This is why the percentage of available doses administered declined.

Based on what is happening in other states, there are likely some lags in reporting of the LTC vaccinations by CVS and Walgreens, so the percentage is likely not as low as I posted yesterday (8% of available vaccines used that are allocated to LTC facilities).

As far as other states, here are the current Top 10 with regards to percentage of available doses administered as reported by the Bloomberg Vaccine Data Tracker:

South Dakota (64.5%)
New Hampshire (56.0%)
North Dakota (54.8%)
Connecticut (54.7%)
Tennessee (51.5%)
Maine (50.7%)
Iowa (50.0%)
Ohio (48.8%)
Rhode Island (47.1%)
Vermont (47.0%)

I excluded the District of Columbia from the list of states. They would be in the Top 10 with 47.9% of available doses used.

North Carolina's percentage of vaccine allocation administered ranks them in the bottom 10 with regards to the vaccinations, just behind Alabama with 24.9% of available vaccines administered.

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So, I am trying to compare SC to NC. Their percentage of doses administered is 42% which is much higher than NC obviously. However, when you actually look at how many doses they have received, it is significantly less than NC (146,250 for SC compared to 498,450 for NC).

My question is why has SC received so fewer dose?

Also, it is hard to compare states with the amount received so vastly different. SC and NC will be compared significantly (at least locally) due to political reasons (Republican vs. Democrat governors), but this makes it much more difficult to compare.

PackPA2015 said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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Here is today's update for vaccines in NC from the Bloomberg data tracker and the CDC data tracker:

Vaccine Doses Distributed: 498,450
Vaccine Doses Administered: 123,598
% of Available Doses Administered: 24.8% (Declined from 27.9%)*

*Supply increased by 103,350 doses reported on Monday and doses administered increased by 13,338 doses, reported on Tuesday on the NCDHHS website. This is why the percentage of available doses administered declined.

Based on what is happening in other states, there are likely some lags in reporting of the LTC vaccinations by CVS and Walgreens, so the percentage is likely not as low as I posted yesterday (8% of available vaccines used that are allocated to LTC facilities).

As far as other states, here are the current Top 10 with regards to percentage of available doses administered as reported by the Bloomberg Vaccine Data Tracker:

South Dakota (64.5%)
New Hampshire (56.0%)
North Dakota (54.8%)
Connecticut (54.7%)
Tennessee (51.5%)
Maine (50.7%)
Iowa (50.0%)
Ohio (48.8%)
Rhode Island (47.1%)
Vermont (47.0%)

I excluded the District of Columbia from the list of states. They would be in the Top 10 with 47.9% of available doses used.

North Carolina's percentage of vaccine allocation administered ranks them in the bottom 10 with regards to the vaccinations, just behind Alabama with 24.9% of available vaccines administered.

---

So, I am trying to compare SC to NC. Their percentage of doses administered is 42% which is much higher than NC obviously. However, when you actually look at how many doses they have received, it is significantly less than NC (146,250 for SC compared to 498,450 for NC).

My question is why has SC received so fewer dose?

Also, it is hard to compare states with the amount received so vastly different. SC and NC will be compared significantly (at least locally) due to political reasons (Republican vs. Democrat governors), but this makes it much more difficult to compare.

---

NC (10.5M) does have twice the population as SC (5.1M), so it makes sense SC would have received fewer vaccine doses. The number of doses provided also includes the doses allocated to LTC facilities. I do not know how much of the SC vaccine allocation includes LTC facility allocation. This could be impacting the total allocation of vaccine. Additionally, the Pfizer allocation was impacted by state's having the cold storage capabilities to store large quantities of this particular vaccine. It is quite possible that NC has a higher capacity to store the Pfizer vaccine than SC, thus limiting the number of vaccine doses SC can accept.

A better comparison is Tennessee (pop. 6.9M) to NC. They have received 328,500 doses and have administered 51.5% of their doses.

Bloomberg's tracker does include a doses per 100 people calculation and this does help to make a more direct comparison when you are considering population differences. In this case, NC has administered 1.18 doses per 100 people and SC has administered 1.20 doses per 100 people. By this measure, SC is doing marginally better than NC. If you compare both to South Dakota, the underperformance is much greater. South Dakota has administered 3.23 doses per 100 people. Tennessee has administered 2.48 doses per 100 people (more than double NC's rate).

To be honest, I had no idea NC population was that much more than SC.

Great info all around. Now, the question is how is South Dakota doing so well? Seems like that would be a more rural area to cover?

PackPA2015 said:

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To be honest, I had no idea NC population was that much more than SC.

Great info all around. Now, the question is how is South Dakota doing so well? Seems like that would be a more rural area to cover?

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I wondered this as well. I believe S. Dakota is aided by the fact that a large percentage of their overall population is concentrated in a few large cities and towns. For example, over 20% of the state's population lives in two cities (Sioux Falls and Rapid City). For NC, 20% of the population is located in their top five cities (Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Durham, Winston-Salem).

Additionally, while S. Dakota is more rural than NC, it is not as rural as I expected. According the data I could find, S. Dakota's urban percentage is 59.9% and NC's urban percentage is 66.1%. So, while S. Dakota is more rural, there is only a 6% difference.

I do believe it is more helpful to look at Tennessee and what they might be doing differently. From a size and geography standpoint, they are very similar to NC. They have population concentrated in a few large cities (Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga) and the population is higher than SC. I really need to look at what steps they may be taking, since it appears they are doing much better than both NC and SC.

Civilized said:

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statefan91 said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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statefan91 said:

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Assume that distribution is weighed heavily because of the focus on HCW and it will go up quickly for 75+. Hopefully.

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Actually, it is not due to this, but you would think so. Some doses have been reserved for use in LTC facilities and they are not available for use by healthcare and the general public. The issue is Walgreens and CVS seem to be slow in ramping up vaccinations in these LTC facilities.

---

That seems criminal that they have Federal contracts and weren't prepared to distribute the moment they were approved for EUA. How long have they had to think about what their approach would be?

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It is weird how uneven the response has been.

There's a lot to like about Trump's Warp Speed WRT vaccine development.

Multiple viable vaccines were safely developed in record time then when it came time to push them out to hundreds of millions the feds were like "we just think Walgreens and CVS should handle this."

Their distribution plan has been as bad as their vaccine development plan was good.

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I think the Feds picked Walgreens and CVS, given their experience in the past with the annual flu vaccines. I am not sure why they would have picked them to vaccinate the LTC facilities based on their area of expertise. As I mentioned in another post, it is being reported that the CVS and Walgreens vaccinations are not up to date from a reporting standpoint. Hopefully, this will get fixed soon. Other than the LTC facility vaccinations, the federal government really has no responsibility to get everyone vaccinated. The responsibility for each state is up to the governors and their state's healthcare organizations.

As to the state's response, it has been equally as bad. Mandy was on television last night saying each health department in each NC county is responsible for vaccinations of the general public and implied it is not being coordinated by the state at all. She said (I am paraphrasing) that she and her department are there to help if called upon, but the state is looking to the health departments to get people vaccinated in the counties. It was not a very reassuring message to be sending to people and seems to be a way to deflect blame when things go wrong with the vaccinations.

Daviewolf83 said:

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Civilized said:

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statefan91 said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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statefan91 said:

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Assume that distribution is weighed heavily because of the focus on HCW and it will go up quickly for 75+. Hopefully.

---

Actually, it is not due to this, but you would think so. Some doses have been reserved for use in LTC facilities and they are not available for use by healthcare and the general public. The issue is Walgreens and CVS seem to be slow in ramping up vaccinations in these LTC facilities.

---

That seems criminal that they have Federal contracts and weren't prepared to distribute the moment they were approved for EUA. How long have they had to think about what their approach would be?

---

It is weird how uneven the response has been.

There's a lot to like about Trump's Warp Speed WRT vaccine development.

Multiple viable vaccines were safely developed in record time then when it came time to push them out to hundreds of millions the feds were like "we just think Walgreens and CVS should handle this."

Their distribution plan has been as bad as their vaccine development plan was good.

---

I think the Feds picked Walgreens and CVS, given their experience in the past with the annual flu vaccines. I am not sure why they would have picked them to vaccinate the LTC facilities based on their area of expertise. As I mentioned in another post, it is being reported that the CVS and Walgreens vaccinations are not up to date from a reporting standpoint. Hopefully, this will get fixed soon. Other than the LTC facility vaccinations, the federal government really has no responsibility to get everyone vaccinated. The responsibility for each state is up to the governors and their state's healthcare organizations.

As to the state's response, it has been equally as bad. Mandy was on television last night saying each health department in each NC county is responsible for vaccinations of the general public and implied it is not being coordinated by the state at all. She said (I am paraphrasing) that she and her department are there to help if called upon, but the state is looking to the health departments to get people vaccinated in the counties. It was not a very reassuring message to be sending to people and seems to be a way to deflect blame when things go wrong with the vaccinations.

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I hear you.

My guess going into this, knowing nothing more than I do, would have been that the federal government, not states, was a much better fit from a funding and infrastructure perspective to handle a rollout of the scale and speed that was required than relying on 50 disjointed and often underfunded states and local municipalities to do it.

Daviewolf83 said:

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Civilized said:

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statefan91 said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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statefan91 said:

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Assume that distribution is weighed heavily because of the focus on HCW and it will go up quickly for 75+. Hopefully.

---

Actually, it is not due to this, but you would think so. Some doses have been reserved for use in LTC facilities and they are not available for use by healthcare and the general public. The issue is Walgreens and CVS seem to be slow in ramping up vaccinations in these LTC facilities.

---

That seems criminal that they have Federal contracts and weren't prepared to distribute the moment they were approved for EUA. How long have they had to think about what their approach would be?

---

It is weird how uneven the response has been.

There's a lot to like about Trump's Warp Speed WRT vaccine development.

Multiple viable vaccines were safely developed in record time then when it came time to push them out to hundreds of millions the feds were like "we just think Walgreens and CVS should handle this."

Their distribution plan has been as bad as their vaccine development plan was good.

---

I think the Feds picked Walgreens and CVS, given their experience in the past with the annual flu vaccines. I am not sure why they would have picked them to vaccinate the LTC facilities based on their area of expertise. As I mentioned in another post, it is being reported that the CVS and Walgreens vaccinations are not up to date from a reporting standpoint. Hopefully, this will get fixed soon. Other than the LTC facility vaccinations, the federal government really has no responsibility to get everyone vaccinated. The responsibility for each state is up to the governors and their state's healthcare organizations.

As to the state's response, it has been equally as bad. Mandy was on television last night saying each health department in each NC county is responsible for vaccinations of the general public and implied it is not being coordinated by the state at all. She said (I am paraphrasing) that she and her department are there to help if called upon, but the state is looking to the health departments to get people vaccinated in the counties. It was not a very reassuring message to be sending to people and seems to be a way to deflect blame when things go wrong with the vaccinations.

---

So stupid to me that both the federal and state government are pushing ALL of the responsibility down the chain. The fact that neither are coordinating with the levels below them; only dropping off vaccines and saying "good luck" is shameful. It's almost like this situation calls for all levels of government to work together....

If that did happen, perhaps the federal government would be able to work with states like SC/NC to provide insight into what a state like Tenn is doing to get the vaccines administered more efficiently. Same thing applies to NC when it comes to which county health departments are being efficient versus those that are lagging behind. So frustrating to watch.

Roy Cooper and Mandy Cohen just gave a Covid-19 update. Some key points:

1. Curfew (10pm to 5am) has been extended for 3 additional weeks.
2. Mandy issued a "secretarial" order to stay at home and limit travel outside the home, unless it is necessary to leave. This order has no legal weight. She is basically asking people to stay at home.
3. Hospitals are managing the increasing hospitalization numbers by repurposing rooms and staff in hospitals. They (NCDHHS) are in constant contact with the hospitals and are working closely daily with them.
4. No plans to offer a statewide appointment scheduling program for the vaccines. Each health department and hospital are responsible for handling the appointment schedules. Cohen said all hospitals have very good appointment scheduling systems and so do some of the health departments. For those health departments htat need help, NCDHHS is directing them to appoint scheduling systems. Quite frankly, I am not sure how this would actually work at the state level and be effective, but a reporter did ask.
5. No plans to offer incentives to people to get the vaccine and they do not plan to require LTC facility employees to get the vaccine. Demand has been good for the vaccine and they believe people will get it when they see others getting it with no major side effects.
6. Cohen is the most concerned about the current state of the virus, since it began early last year.

wilmwolf80 said:

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Short of sending out the army to vaccinate the country, which probably wouldn't be well received, I'm not sure what the federal government could've done differently. Even if they were in charge, they would presumably still be subcontracting out to local hospitals, CVS, etc. to administer it, and I feel the same problems would still exist.

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Agree with this.

I read an interesting article published by Bloomberg News today on the disjointed vaccine rollout. It has some very good insight into the complications with rolling out the Covid-19 vaccine. Some of the comments echo what we have all been discussing on this thread. I found it interesting that while the US is not where they want to be, many other countries, including France, Canada, Italy, and Spain, are doing worse.

I thought the following quote from the article helps to summarize the situation:

"Bloomberg's reporting shows missed opportunities at every level of government, from a laissez-faire approach in Washington to local hospitals where harried health-care workers were left trying to make last-minute decisions without guidance."

You can read the full article at this link: US vaccine rollout hindered by faulty coordination, messaging

Daviewolf83 said:

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I read an interesting article published by Bloomberg News today on the disjointed virus rollout. It has some very good insight into the complications with rolling out a vaccine. Some of the comments echo what we have all been discussing and thinking on this thread. I found it interesting that while the US is not where they want to be, many other countries, including France, Canada, Italy, and Spain, are doing worse.

I thought the following quote from the article helps to summarize the situation:

"Bloomberg's reporting shows missed opportunities at every level of government, from a laissez-faire approach in Washington to local hospitals where harried health-care workers were left trying to make last-minute decisions without guidance."

You can read the full article at this link: US vaccine rollout hindered by faulty coordination, messaging

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Wow this is very informative and a great read. The disjointed approach would be the single biggest issue when trying to run something from a federal level from my view.

I think your local situation is an excellent example of why rollout should not be handled by federal government. The federal government has given suggestions on how to roll out the vaccinations. The local and state governments should adopt and adjust so as to fit their constituents. The federal government should not be depended upon to manage roll out for the 50 states and thousands of counties.

I'm not sure it's logical to expect a smooth rollout of anything new of a nature like this. We're a pretty large country with a lot of states and there are millions of these going all over the place. It's just like the testing. People were upset back in March that we didn't have testing capability for a brand new virus that people were trying to figure out. Now we have a brand new vaccine that we've never distributed before.

PackPA2015 said:

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I think a lot of blame can be placed a lot of places with the vaccine rollout. I don't think all of it is deserved on a federal or state level, but there is some blame for both areas.

I have seen our local area really, really struggle with distribution. Our local pharmacies will not receive vaccinations until the end of the month. Our health department has set up an online service for the 75+ individuals requiring them to have an email. Most of that age group in our area does not have access to that. It is also a 3 step process which adds even more to the confusion. The number of phone calls they received shut down their phone services and they are about a week behind with callbacks.

So, I think a better, more efficient federal plan, maybe even suggestion, for state and local distribution would have benefitted the rollout. I don't think it would need to be rolled out via military personnel or anything like that, but a better overall system would have benefitted a lot of individuals. I also think state and local distribution has also been very poorly planned, at least in my area.

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You make some very good points. For example, my in-laws (both in their 80's) do not use a computer to do any online scheduling of doctor appointments. Everything they do is by phone or in-person. They do NO online shopping and my father in-law only uses his computer to check some news sites and read some email feeds he gets from friends. To ask them to schedule an appointment online would require my wife to do it for them.

Distribution to pharmacies and hospitals has also not been consistent. I have read that some pharmacies do not know when they will receive shipments and when they are told, the quantities will change before the shipments arrive. On top of this, some of the pharmacy allocation is reserved for LTC facilities per their Federal contract and those allocations can not be used for the general public.

Add to this the additional paperwork required on the part of the providers for tracking of people who received the vaccine. A few days ago, I read an article that pointed out that due to the fact the vaccines were approved as part of an EUA, it requires another level of paperwork and tracking than a flu vaccine would require.

Ultimately, you would hope the flu vaccine process we have today could be used to get the Covid vaccine to as many people as possible, but I am sure there are complications with this vaccine that do not apply to the flu vaccine. For example, the current Covid vaccines require two doses, so follow-up appointments need to be scheduled and supply must be kept on hand for the second round of doses. These are things that do not need to be considered with the flu vaccine.

Ultimately, I believe distribution will get better as we learn what works and does not work and as supply continues to ramp up. I provided the graph earlier, since it does show that while the US is struggling, we are not alone in this world and are doing much better than many other countries.

PackPA2015 said:

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packgrad said:

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I think your local situation is an excellent example of why rollout should not be handled by federal government. The federal government has given suggestions on how to roll out the vaccinations. The local and state governments should adopt and adjust so as to fit their constituents. The federal government should not be depended upon to manage roll out for the 50 states and thousands of counties.

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I agree and disagree. Typically and in most situations, I would say, yes, limit the federal government influence. However, in this situation, the federal government has really not given at least our local area any suggestions. I am good friends with the vaccine director at our health department and they are coming up with all plans themselves (according to her). They were sent the vaccines and told the state would decide whom to give them to. There were no other suggestions (again, according to her).

There has to be a more efficient, simpler way to mass distribute the vaccines and then maybe there isn't.

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Good information. I saw a Tweet by Dr. Scott Gottlieb today where he suggested the local health departments should focus on vaccinating the LTC facilities and let the pharmacies focus on the at risk populations in the general public.

I was curious as to if you think that would be a more efficient process than the current plan?

PackPA2015 said:

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packgrad said:

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I think your local situation is an excellent example of why rollout should not be handled by federal government. The federal government has given suggestions on how to roll out the vaccinations. The local and state governments should adopt and adjust so as to fit their constituents. The federal government should not be depended upon to manage roll out for the 50 states and thousands of counties.

---

I agree and disagree. Typically and in most situations, I would say, yes, limit the federal government influence. However, in this situation, the federal government has really not given at least our local area any suggestions. I am good friends with the vaccine director at our health department and they are coming up with all plans themselves (according to her). They were sent the vaccines and told the state would decide whom to give them to. There were no other suggestions (again, according to her).

There has to be a more efficient, simpler way to mass distribute the vaccines and then maybe there isn't.

---

I'm sure we agree more than we disagree on this. I'm just not sure what additional information the federal government can give local government on how best to handle their unique situation. I may be remembering this incorrectly, apologies if so, but isn't it the CDC guidance that the state is basing their vaccination plan on? It seems the state has done nothing to break it down more for the state level. And I'm not one to say necessarily that they are better suited to handle it than the local government. It just seems to me there should be tweaking at each level to better ensure the constituents are cared for. Instead it seems we have CDC guidance, and state and local government throwing their hands in the air not knowing what to do. Aren't these people elected, or professionals in these areas as well? Have they no plan?

Agreed here - didn't the State Health Departments have to put together extremely detailed vaccination plans that were due to the Federal Government before the vaccines were even approved? They should've been ready to go with this.

Daviewolf83 said:

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PackPA2015 said:

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packgrad said:

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I think your local situation is an excellent example of why rollout should not be handled by federal government. The federal government has given suggestions on how to roll out the vaccinations. The local and state governments should adopt and adjust so as to fit their constituents. The federal government should not be depended upon to manage roll out for the 50 states and thousands of counties.

---

I agree and disagree. Typically and in most situations, I would say, yes, limit the federal government influence. However, in this situation, the federal government has really not given at least our local area any suggestions. I am good friends with the vaccine director at our health department and they are coming up with all plans themselves (according to her). They were sent the vaccines and told the state would decide whom to give them to. There were no other suggestions (again, according to her).

There has to be a more efficient, simpler way to mass distribute the vaccines and then maybe there isn't.

---

Good information. I saw a Tweet by Dr. Scott Gottlieb today where he suggested the local health departments should focus on vaccinating the LTC facilities and let the pharmacies focus on the at risk populations in the general public.

I was curious as to if you think that would be a more efficient process than the current plan?

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I do think that would be more efficient, plus it is a coherent plan that could easily be put into place. There is a lot of room for improvement all around.

packgrad said:

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PackPA2015 said:

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packgrad said:

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I think your local situation is an excellent example of why rollout should not be handled by federal government. The federal government has given suggestions on how to roll out the vaccinations. The local and state governments should adopt and adjust so as to fit their constituents. The federal government should not be depended upon to manage roll out for the 50 states and thousands of counties.

---

I agree and disagree. Typically and in most situations, I would say, yes, limit the federal government influence. However, in this situation, the federal government has really not given at least our local area any suggestions. I am good friends with the vaccine director at our health department and they are coming up with all plans themselves (according to her). They were sent the vaccines and told the state would decide whom to give them to. There were no other suggestions (again, according to her).

There has to be a more efficient, simpler way to mass distribute the vaccines and then maybe there isn't.

---

I'm sure we agree more than we disagree on this. I'm just not sure what additional information the federal government can give local government on how best to handle their unique situation. I may be remembering this incorrectly, apologies if so, but isn't it the CDC guidance that the state is basing their vaccination plan on? It seems the state has done nothing to break it down more for the state level. And I'm not one to say necessarily that they are better suited to handle it than the local government. It just seems to me there should be tweaking at each level to better ensure the constituents are cared for. Instead it seems we have CDC guidance, and state and local government throwing their hands in the air not knowing what to do. Aren't these people elected, or professionals in these areas as well? Have they no plan?

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To be honest, I do not know exactly where the breakdowns begin or end. I think there should have been more of a detailed plan on exactly how these vaccines were going to be distributed and tracked from someone. Again, not sure what the best answer would have been, but interesting to discuss.

packgrad said:

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I think it's ridiculous to expect the federal government to orchestrate the vaccinations. There is no one size fits all approach for the 50 states. It may be asking too much to expect it of the governors, but i think that's a much more reasonable expectation.

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Yes, among other things, it begs the question, why do we have states anyway? Of course, in the last one hundred years, states seems to have evolved into departments" of the federal government.