Just days after Alabama’s COVID-19 vaccination efforts were last ranked in the U.S., state health officials announced a new policy in an effort to speed up implementation: if providers do not meet the doses made available to them, used as soon as possible, the already restricted offer will be removed and sent elsewhere in the state where it can be administered “on time”.
“In response to concerns that some suppliers are not submitting their awards on time, [Alabama Department of Public Health] will begin removing the vaccine supply from suppliers who do not administer the vaccine on time, ‘Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) officials said in a news release on Wednesday.
“Unused vaccine will be diverted to other providers who will administer the vaccine faster. ADPH examines all suppliers in the state to ensure that all doses administered have been correctly reported to us, and to determine if there is any available vaccine that needs to be redistributed. . elsewhere. ‘
The province’s health departments currently have to administer a complete inventory of the vaccine every week until there is no vaccine left, ADPH officials said.
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“With the understanding that some smaller rural provinces may not be able to give the vaccine, ADPH is working with community providers to provide rapid vaccination to the public,” they said. To assist with such efforts in provinces, ADPH employees have been ‘diverted from their existing duties.’
Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccination tracker shows that Alabama has caught up behind the rest of the country in terms of vaccination efforts, averaging just over 2,800 shots per 100,000 residents as of Wednesday.
The state, which on Monday opened appointments for residents 75 and older and first responders in addition to health workers, administered about 139,200 of the 483,275 doses distributed, according to federal estimates.
However, there is a difference between state and federal estimates.
The ADPH data dashboard currently shows that more than 200,000 doses have been administered to date.
Alabama health officials said in the news release that the department was working with the federal health agency to “resolve data issues.”
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“Unlike some reports, the number of unused doses of previous grants does not affect the amount of doses the [CDC] powerful for Alabama. “ADPH is working with the CDC to resolve data issues to ensure that Alabama receives credit for every dose administered in the state,” the release said.
“No doses of vaccines in Alabama have been thrown away, and the grants are based on population, so there is no benefit to residents of larger provinces over smaller ones,” they added.
In a statement, dr. Scott Harris, the state’s health officer, sought to clear up the “misunderstandings” regarding vaccine efforts in Alabama.
“Every person who gets a COVID-19 shot deserves one and will receive it, because we are determined to make sure no vaccine is left unused on the shelf. We make every effort to get shots as quickly as possible in the to get arms., “he said. “The biggest obstacle to vaccination is still the limited vaccine supply. We are trying to manage expectations because the timeline for receiving the vaccine has not changed and our people cannot give a resource we do not yet have.”
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The state’s new policy to speed up vaccination efforts follows similar threats made by the government’s government Andrew Cuomo in New York. The governor said Monday that hospitals that administered their assigned doses quickly would receive more, while those that were slow to use their doses would not receive extra doses.
“For the less performing facilities, we will give less, if any, of the new allocation. They will all have enough to do with their staff, but we want to make sure that the faster facilities – the facilities that perform best” – get more of the new award because we want it out the door, ‘Cuomo said. “We do not want it to sit on the shelf. Those who can vaccinate faster will get more of the new award.”
Fox News’ Alexandria Hein contributed to this report.