Given the limited number of vaccine dosages, provincial clinics have been prioritizing residents 75 years and older for vaccine appointments since the end of January.
Officials in Montgomery County, Maryland, say they continue to fight rumors and misinformation about who could get COVID-19 vaccinations in the country and the improper part of hiring links that are abandoning the job to the most vulnerable residents of the vaccinate land too late.
Due to the limited number of vaccine dosages, provincial clinics have only offered residents aged 75 and older for vaccination appointments since the end of January.
According to social media reports, large groups of people turned up on Thursday morning to be vaccinated at one of the provinces’ clinics at Richard Montgomery High School, including teachers and those under 75.
This was apparently the result of improperly shared appointment links and incorrect information that teachers and boarding schools were being taken to the site, according to dr. Travis Gayles.
“Apparently there were a significant number of people who showed up at one of our sites today – and were not happy when they were turned away,” Gayles said during an online briefing with reporters.
The province has been clear in recent weeks that people who want to get vaccinated at a clinic run by the province must pre-register with the province and that they must be 75 years or older, Gayles said.
Part of the problem is that after residents pre-register and send links to make appointments, these links are shared with others – and in some cases widely shared.
Gayles said he has heard from officials in other provinces that links appear on mailing lists and Listservs for groups, creating a “free for all” instead of the orderly process that local health departments envision.
County Elix Marc Elrich said link sharing remains an issue. It’s creating a mess in terms of who can actually get vaccinated, ‘he said – and it prevents people aged 75 and over from actually getting appointments “because someone else was taken by the appointments.”
The dating links are generated by a state-owned website, known as PrepMod, which is to be used by the province throughout the country. Although the state-run system asks users to set their age, it does not kick them out if they are not 75 or older.
Meanwhile, Gayles staff cannot see all registrants under the age of 75, as health workers are also still eligible. “We’re trying to try,” Gayles said.
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Provincial officials have been urging the state for weeks for a software solution to the problem of sharing links, and at least one solution is now on the way. The system is customized so that each link can only be used by one person.
Meanwhile, Gayles and other provincial officials are appealing to residents to be responsible: if you are not 75 years or older, do not make an appointment with a province, even if someone shares a link with you.
“We were very clear about who is eligible and who we prioritize on different sites,” Gayles said. ‘And if you know that you do not meet the requirements and still register, how can you end up upset when you arrive at the place where we remind you that you are not able to receive the vaccine? And in fact, you create a system where you make an appointment with someone who does meet the criteria, and who slows down the process of continuing. ‘
Although the state changed the fitness guidelines last month to include those 65 and older, the country is not receiving enough doses from the state to do more vaccinations, Elrich said.
Last week, the province’s health department received about 5,500 first doses to distribute. This week, the province received approximately 4,500 doses.
Elrich said the province continues to prioritize residents 75 and older as the group has the highest death rate. “They were made the first priority for that reason,” Elrich said.
So far, about 27,000 provincial residents aged 75 and older have received vaccine doses over the course of about two and a half weeks, according to data from the country. But that’s just a little over a third of the province’s total population of 75 and older.
If the doses provided to the country do not increase, Elrich said it would take another ten weeks to vaccinate the oldest residents of the country.
The confusion is contributing to the growing number of private providers, such as hospitals and pharmacies, who are receiving vaccine doses and those who can vaccinate 65 to 74, as well as teachers. (A total of about 10,000 doses a week go to the other providers, provincial officials said.)
If the other providers, such as hospitals and pharmacies, are committed to setting aside half of their grants to specifically target 75-and-older, Elrich said it will take about half as long to reach all 75+ residents to be eligible for vaccination – about five weeks.
“It will wait a very long time for people if we have to rely on the amount of doses the country itself receives,” he added.
Given the lower number of vaccine doses – and there are approximately 300,000 Montgomery County residents eligible for the first phase of vaccine vaccination – it is a zero-sum game to offer doses to one group over another.
“It’s the problem for everyone to be eligible if the supply is as low as it is,” Elrich said. “We want to make these vaccines available to everyone. We just do not have the offer to do that. ”
Earl Stoddard, the director of the province’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, added: “As much as we hear from others – teachers who want to be vaccinated, 65- to 74-year-olds, postal workers, grocery workers – we only hear so many seniors older than 75 who have not yet had an opportunity and are desperate to get one too. And so, every appointment taken by a teacher, it’s an appointment a 75-year-old does not get. ”