‘I feel misled’: main characters respond to strictly eligible vaccine

While two people in their household considered a high risk for COVID-19, the Koch family was extremely careful during the pandemic.

They had not run a grocery store for almost a year, but rather opted for service on the go. The two boys were remotely educated this year and both parents work at the family’s Waterville home.

So when the state shifted its policies and announced Friday that vaccine admission would be strictly based on age in Maine – going forward – regardless of the underlying health conditions – Hilary Koch said she was “stunned and really devastated.”

Both Koch and her husband, who have a heart condition, may not be eligible in May, while their older son will likely only be in line in July. Meanwhile, it is unclear when Koch’s 14-year-old son with type 1 diabetes – an autoimmune disorder that makes any disease more dangerous – will be eligible.

“For every person at high risk, I’m sorry, but this policy does not serve them – it really does not work and it puts them at the back of the queue,” Koch said on Monday. “I feel deceived and feel that people with medical disabilities have been deceived.”

The Kochs have a lot of company in their frustration.

The Mills administration’s announcement that it’s changing to age-based eligibility for COVID-19 vaccines has provided hundreds of thousands of Mainers with some predictability, wondering for months when it’s their turn. In addition to Mainers 60 and older qualifying this Wednesday, the rough timeline predicts vaccinations in April for those in their 50s, in May for individuals in their 40s, in June for those in their 30s and during the summer for anyone over 16.

But for hundreds of thousands of others, the new policy probably means they are not eligible for vaccination before their age group. This is because the state will no longer give higher priority to individuals with a high-risk medical condition or people in the top position.

Government Janet Mills and state health officials knew the move would be unpopular among people with underlying health conditions and those at higher risk because they are teachers, grocery stores, post offices or other so-called ‘essentials’. jobs.

But they said the age-based system is the fastest and most effective way to achieve ‘herd immunity’, while offering the best chance of reducing deaths and serious illnesses among older Mainers, who had the highest death rate during the pandemic.

“Since Maine has the highest median age of any state, this approach is the right one for Maine based on the scientific data,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said Friday. “For operational and epidemiological reasons, this age approach is best for Maine to save the most lives in the shortest amount of time.”

This population-based approach helps the anger and frustration among individuals who will no longer enjoy medical conditions due to the high risk – a shift that is contrary to the recommendations of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

Sherri Hartwell pointed to research from the UK showing that individuals with Down syndrome are five times more likely to be hospitalized and 10 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than the general population.

Hartwell’s 39-year-old daughter, Julie, is a highly functioning individual with Down syndrome who lives alone and worked at a local restaurant for years until it closed during the pandemic. Julie “does what she has to do to be safe,” including wearing a mask, washing her hands and complying with all other safety protocols, Hartwell said.

But Hartwell is concerned about the risks her daughter faces, and believes the state should make exceptions for people with Down syndrome, given the emerging research.

“Right now, it’s just for me to keep her safe,” Hartwell said. ‘I’m angry because the state and the medical people apparently do not know much about this. … I’m not that angry about the age piece. I understand: we are in a difficult situation. But in such cases, I wish there was a way to get some of these (conditions) vaccinated earlier. ”

Maine has one of the lowest COVID-19 infections and mortality rates in the country. But the virus has taken a deadly toll on the state’s oldest residents.

Mainers 70 or older are responsible for only 12 percent of all COVID-19 cases in Maine, but more than 85 percent of all deaths. Meanwhile, only 2 percent of all deaths in Maine occurred among people under 50 years of age.

For months, Maine’s official vaccination strategy has placed people at high-risk medical conditions within phase 1B along with older Mainers and so-called ‘essential’ workers who were in line with federal recommendations. But states have a wide margin to decide how to distribute the vaccine doses, and last week Maine at Connecticut and a handful of other states took an age-based approach.

Research shows that obesity, diabetes, some cancers and other underlying health conditions put individuals at greater risk due to COVID-19. But Maine’s status as the oldest in the country – with 21.5 percent of residents aged 65 and older – and the logistical challenges of prioritizing vaccines for high-risk individuals have led them to the controversial, age-based approach.

Jeanne Lambrew, commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Services in Maine, acknowledged that some individuals are at higher risk because of their medical conditions. But the reality is that state policy should be based on groups, not individuals, Lambrew said.

“The evidence strongly suggests that the grouping that matters most is age,” Lambrew said last week. ‘So we need to take a population-based, group-based approach to the state of Maine. We do not have the ability or the ability to go one by one to make fitness determinations. As Governor Mills also puts it, these are difficult decisions. But we went along with science. ‘

Doctors who have been urging high-risk patients to sit tight for months now need to encourage even more patience.

Dr. John Winters, an oncologist at New England Cancer Specialists, said that vaccination against COVID-19 is the very next question patients have after finishing cancer treatment. And he suspects that many patients will feel that they have had the carpet pulled out from under them after hearing for months that they would probably be eligible during phase 1B.

Winters said cancer is not one disease – it is a thousand different diseases, some of which clearly place patients at higher risk for serious illness or death due to COVID-19. Some types of cancer involve, for example, bone marrow transplants or treatments that necessarily kill immune system cells. In some of his cases, Winters said, patients actually planned to delay treatment until after vaccination.

“We mostly support the Maine CDC and appreciate their efforts to get doctors and private practices vaccinated before,” Winters said. ‘I think they’re trying to save as many lives as possible, so I understand that. But I do think that there are many people (with high-risk conditions) who are left out to get the vaccine, and who are more vulnerable than people who are now standing in line in front of them. ”

Koch, the mother of Waterville, urged people affected by the policy shift to contact their lawmakers in hopes of putting pressure on the Mills administration. She also takes on the role of advocating for all people affected by the decision, not just those with diabetes.

“I would say that my husband and son are still alive does not mean that their age is determinative,” Koch said. “It just means we’ve taken extraordinary measures over the past year to keep it safe.”

Like the Kochs, Gardiner’s 44-year-old Stephen Corral said he played the whole pandemic ‘extra, extra careful’ while working from home, avoiding the grocery store and even seeing friends. Since type 1 diabetes affects the immune system, even colds can pose a significant health risk and take longer to recover.

As a healthcare analyst with a background in statistical research, Corral took a different message than the data Shah, the CDC director of Maine, presented last week to support the age-based system. Although age is clearly an important indicator of risk, Corral pointed out that diabetics are much more likely to die after contracting COVID.

“I hope there is a significant setback that the government will reconsider,” Corral said. ‘I think it’s unfortunate that they decided to go against the US CDC recommendations and that they changed course and created more confusion with this policy change. Public health requires a lot of public trust … and I’m worried about how changes late in the game will affect that trust. ”

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