As more COVID-19 vaccine appointments open daily in Alaska, some providers say they are experiencing a recurring problem: no appointment by appointment.
“This has been a major issue over the past week, if not longer,” said Heather Harris, director of the Anchorage Health Department.
Case in point: More than 200 people never showed up at the Anchorage School District Vaccination Clinic on Wednesday for their regular appointments, said Lisa Miller, a spokeswoman for the school district.
While ASD and other clinic providers have so far been largely able to adapt to the latest changes in vaccine use, health officials say non-offers cause some stress on providers, and they encourage Alaskans to make appointments in advance. cancel. not going to be there.
“I think what’s nice is that we are not wasting the vaccine,” Kelsey Pistotnik, a program manager for the Alaska Immunization Program, said in a media call on Thursday. But “it’s a big burden for suppliers if they expect a certain number within a day and they get a lot less,” she said.
This is at the point where “clinics need to do somersaults and backflips to make sure no vaccine is wasted,” Harris said.
The issue seems to be that people have made appointments for the soon-to-be-available lock – it could take weeks. But since there are regular appointments on the site, some may come back later, discuss an earlier or more convenient lock and then forget to cancel the old one, said Tessa Walker Linderman, a co-leader with the Alaska Vaccine Task Force.
“We definitely have ‘appointment shopping’, and I understand that – we all want to be vaccinated sooner,” Pistotnik said. ‘But we’re still trying to find the sweet spot so that it works really well on the part of the provider’, as well as the patient.
“This is definitely a newer problem,” Pistotnik said.
Alaska became the first in the country this month to open vaccine appointments to anyone 16 years of age or older living or working in the state, without any other eligibility restrictions – thanks in part to the large number of unfilled vaccine appointments available at the time wash.
Public health officials said this week that although demand for the vaccine has generally been high since Alaska removed the requirements for admission, the overall saturation of appointments in the state – especially in Anchorage – has made it easier for people to be picky about what place they use for vaccination vaccinations sign up for.
“We’ve moved from a place where you have to make an appointment that needs to be planned for many weeks to a lot of options at the moment,” Harris said.
Many clinic providers say they could adjust the failure of appointments. In the ASD clinic, the health team changed how much vaccine they draw from freezers every day.
“What we are doing to ensure there is no waste is that if we registered 1,000 in the morning, we would pick up 500 doses from the freezer,” said Miller, a spokesman for the school district. She added that so far no vaccine has been wasted.
A woman signals the next person in a queue to a vaccination station at the Anchorage School District Education Center on February 11, 2021. (Emily Mesner / ADN)
The Pfizer vaccine can keep in freezers for about two weeks, and can then keep in a refrigerator for about five days, she said. After the vials have been pierced, it only lasts about six hours.
So, “we do not pull out of ultra-cold storage unless we absolutely have to,” she said.
Not every clinic had the same problem. Rene Dillow, a public health nurse in Mat-Su, said on Thursday that only about 10% of scheduled vaccination appointments in the region are missed.
And Juneau vaccination clinics are witnessing non-congestion and cancellations, says Robert Barr, department head for the Juneau Emergency Surgery Center. But it has not yet become a problem, he said.
People who cancel or do not show up have usually been vaccinated somewhere else or a travel problem that affects their ability to get a second dose.
At half-day clinics, which vaccinate about 400 people, they see about 10 non-turnout places. And the full days, when about 1,000 people are likely to get a vaccine, they see about 30 congestion, he says.
“It’s a manageable number for us. We can work with it, ”said Barr.
The Juneau clinics have a public waiting list, which means they could call people who want to call shots to reimburse the public appointments, Barr said.
But that could change soon, as the supply of vaccine increases and demand begins to slow down as more people on the waiting list get vaccinations.
“I think maybe in April – probably in May – we will start to equalize supply and demand, and then it will be harder for us to deal with it,” Barr said.
There is about a 7% turnout rate for the major vaccine clinics being held at the Carlson Center in Fairbanks, said Clint Brooks, an incident leader for the Fairbanks North Star Borough United Command.
But despite the non-turnout, Brooks said filling slots was not a problem. They plan to book appointments with about 7%, keep the clinic open online and keep a waiting list.
Harris, with the Anchorage Health Department, said an open vaccine clinic on Friday was an attempt to test whether eliminating the need to schedule an appointment would make vaccination easier for some people.
The Anchorage School District team reached out to those who missed their vaccination appointments and gave them the chance to discuss again.
Miller said that although very little vaccine was wasted, the clinic does ask that Alaskans cancel their appointments in advance instead of simply not showing up.
“Hold off your appointment, and if you can not get it right, you have to cancel it,” she said. “It helps the process.”