US vaccinations hampered by complicated priority levels, no federal aid

• The US has one of the lowest COVID-19 vaccinations per capita in the world. Israel has the best.
• Israel has chosen to prioritize its elderly. The US, on the other hand, used its doses through a complex priority-level system, based in part on employment of people.
• Some experts believe that the priority level system must be managed to correct the US vaccination campaign.
• States also need more federal aid during the rollout process.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Officials are scrambling to speed up COVID-19 vaccinations across the U.S., but a complicated set of guidelines on who should be preferred has thwarted states’ efforts to maximize the number of gunshots.

Indeed, the effectiveness of the US is so poor that it is about 12% of that of Israel, which is one lane to become the world’s first country to immunize its population against the coronavirus.

On January 15, Israel administered 24 doses per 100 people, according to Bloomberg, the highest per capita rate for any country. In comparison, the US administered 3.6 doses per 100 people.

The pace of US snail can be explained by the lack of federal guidance and assistance by states – Operation Warp Speed ​​delivered vaccines in record time, but ultimately left it to individual states to figure out how to distribute their vaccines .

Ethan Miller / Getty Images

Experts like dr. Peter Hotez, a molecular virologist from the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, also argues that the complicated CDC guidelines that Americans should prioritize, and when it dropped the U.S. vaccination efforts.

“A massive vaccination campaign will not work with our current picky and complicated criteria for who gets a chance and when,” Hotez wrote in an article for The Washington Post on Monday.

The story from Israel can prove Hotez’s point.

Israel has chosen to abandon priority levels, and has instead focused on vaccinating its older residents first – in the month since its inception, nearly 25% of the population of 9 million people in Israel has received a dose.

Why the vaccination of Israel was better than the USA

Israel expects to administer COVID-19 vaccines to all its citizens aged 16 and over by the end of March. The country currently has limited vaccinations for people aged 60 and over, as well as health workers and people at high risk for serious diseases. A person’s employment status does not apply to their eligibility.

Sebastian Scheiner / AP

In contrast, the U.S. spent the month after the first approval of the vaccine by dividing the priority groups based on where people work: health workers and long-term nursing homes and staff had to be first, followed by frontline essential workers and people 75 years old. Americans 65 and older, and those with high-risk health conditions that exacerbated their risk of severe COVID-19, would come last before the vaccine sluice was opened to the general public.

While the CDC guidelines provided that states could vaccinate multiple priority groups simultaneously, the initial rollout was hampered by priority group members who did not want a vaccine, doses that were lost because hospitals could not find suitable weapons to vaccinate them. to sit. , and Americans who are addicted to health care providers and pharmacies regarding their eligibility and whether they can show up at the nearest clinic and be happy.

“There is no obvious way to vaccinate tens of thousands of people, but to ensure that the first ones are eligible through essential occupation or underlying health condition,” Hotez wrote, adding: “Confirming such criteria is on his best complicated and probably not even. feasible to try under circumstances of coercion. “

Israel’s resounding vaccination success may be due to the sheer simplicity of their priority system, San Francisco blogger Elad Gil wrote: ‘With age-based levels, it’s easy to know who’s going to show up and who’s eligible, and that imposes a great burden on its maintenance. “

Amir Cohen / AP

That said, Israel’s mass vaccination has also been aided by the country’s small population and compact geographical footprint. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached early deals with vaccine manufacturers BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Pfizer, and did not want to pay the best dollar for more stock.

Experts also pointed to Israel’s centralized, government – sponsored public health care system as an asset in its effective vaccination campaign.

Ronit Calderon-Margalit, a public health physician at Hadassah-Hebrew University, told CNBC that every citizen has a unique health care ID, so it’s easy to call, follow ‘and a central compile a list of who was vaccinated, and when.

States struggle to vaccinate their citizens without federal aid

Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser to Operation Warp Speed, predicted last month that 50 million Americans would be vaccinated by the end of January. With only 16 days left until the deadline, only 11.9 million doses were administered and only 30 million doses were distributed, according to the CDC.

In order to accelerate the deployment, Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Alex Azar took a page from Israel’s book.

He said on Tuesday that states should expand the pool of people who have priority access. The pool should now contain Americans between the ages of 16 and 64 who have certain underlying health issues that increase the risk of developing severe COVID-19, he said.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

But expanding the priority pool does not help address a critical, underlying problem of the U.S. vaccination campaign: a lack of federal leadership (now and before implementation) has a duty to plan appointments, identify vaccination sites, and to compile, and to make residents eligible for individual states.

The issue boils down to attitudes among White House and HHS staff, Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told Insider. “They deeply believe that it is not the role of the federal government to help states in a health crisis, it is the job of states to figure it all out on their own,” he said.

As a result, it was easier for some Americans to get vaccinated – depending on where they live and what priority scheme their government officials chose to pursue – and created 50 different timelines of when eligible people can expect their shot .

Andrew West / The News-Press / USA Today Network via Reuters

According to Premier Inc., the leading healthcare improvement company in the US, a decentralized rollout has led to great confusion, with providers unsure which state or federal agency to make decisions or where to turn to solve problems . (Biden’s new vaccine plan wants to address issues like this.)

And centralization was, according to Boaz Lev, a member of the Israeli Ministry of Health, the key to Israel’s success, not priority levels.

“Create a good stream of vaccines, a good stream of people … with a good administrative background so you can register them and let them know when to come for their next outing. So there are a variety of things that are basically planned, and to have it rolled out so that it flows, ‘he told CNBC on Wednesday.

The validity of Boaz’s comments is set out in the data on the US states winning the vaccination race.

Dave Kolpack / AP Photo

States that opened vaccinations for older residents earlier than the rest of the U.S., such as Florida and Texas, are not the leaders to vaccinate their residents.

West Virginia and the Dakotas, on the other hand, are the best in the country with per capita vaccinations, an achievement they have achieved by planning strong partnerships with local health care systems and pharmacies to facilitate dose distribution before implementation.

Andy Dunn, Aria Bendix and Hilary Brueck contributed reporting to this story.