After a week of confusing information about the complicated vaccination of COVID-19 in South Carolina, state leaders and hospital administrators were blinded by devastating news on Friday.
The federal government has reduced South Carolina’s expected supply of first-dose COVID-19 vaccines 75 percentage, according to a notice to hospital administrators of the South Carolina Hospital Association.
Now, after thousands of elderly South Carolina residents spent hours signing up for appointments as the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) opened registration for people over 70 on Wednesday, many of the difficult appointments will have to be canceled or reschedule.
The letter from Thornton Kirby, CEO of the SC Hospital Association, states that hospitals will receive 100 percent of the second doses they have requested.
“Many hospitals are likely to cancel appointments for the first dose next week,” Kirby wrote in the letter.
Kirby also said he was concerned that “hospitals will be very reluctant to schedule appointments after next week due to the unpredictable offer.”
In a virtual meeting Friday, SC senator Tom Davis made the news known to other Beaufort County officials.
“The hospitals will probably have to cancel the appointments, and worse, you have to do it all over again,” Davis said. “The whole thing was just a huge waste of time.”
Davis said the reduction was due to a lack of supply at the federal level.
“At the end of the day, there is not enough stock of the vaccine currently being allocated to the states,” Davis said.
Hospital administrators are now in a difficult position as it is unclear for how many appointments they can plan.
Beaufort Memorial Hospital officials said Friday they are canceling more than 6,000 appointments scheduled for March. These appointments will remain indefinite until the vaccine supply is available.
‘We understand that the national vaccine supply is somewhat limited; “The fact that we placed these orders a week ago and were only notified by the state that they could not be met is disappointing,” said Beaufort Memorial CEO. Russell Baxley said. “South Carolina hospitals have worked very hard to follow the state’s guidance to serve the best interests of our communities, but we cannot do so without consistent and reliable supply.”
Hilton Head Hospital CEO Jeremy Clark On Friday afternoon, his hospital communicated with DHEC to get a better idea of the exact doses that will be given to them before they start canceling or postponing the appointments.
Kirby said he asked DHEC officials to get specific grants for each hospital to them so they do not ‘have to guess’.
South Carolina’s vaccine deployment has so far been a total disaster. As of Friday, SC was the last place among the fifty countries in the country in terms of the number of vaccinations against Covid-19 he received.
According to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), only from January 14, 2021 6,808 vaccines were distributed for every 100,000 South Karolines.
This is the worst distribution rate of any state in the country – which has put pressure on the government of governor Henry McMaster, Will Folks, founding editor of FITSNews, reported yesterday.
“To say McMaster stumbled, stumbled and stumbled through Covid-19 puts it politely,” Folks wrote. “As we have often noted, his inconsistent handling of the pandemic has also significantly hampered his political power.”
Now that state leaders have overestimated the number of vaccines expected, the situation looks bleak.
We will continue to report on the deployment of vaccines and get answers to many of these unanswered questions. Stay tuned…
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