| Delaware News Journal
Elderly in Delaware flock to mass vaccination event
Hundreds in Phase 1B will receive COVID vaccine at Delaware City DMV Friday
John J. Jankowski Jr., Special to The News Journal
Editor’s note: The number of older adults who had appointments on Saturday but were not vaccinated has been corrected. The Division of Public Health initially provided incorrect statistics.
Nearly every turn in the early stages has caused Delaware’s vaccination plan to cause confusion and frustration among health workers, first responders and older adults who, according to officials, must first provide protection against the deadly effects of the new coronavirus.
In the first month of commencement, the state struggled to obtain the vaccine from primary care providers and other private offices without a hospital commitment that is considered part of the population with the highest priority in phase 1A.
They were often left to chase doses through their own compounds, at the same time, the state’s vaccine detection showed that about half of the doses were not used.
The state then instituted major vaccination events that focused on ‘sprinting’ through the rest of Phase 1A, but residents who were not part of the group were vaccinated at the events, leading to more consternation.
Delaware last week moved to Phase 1B of its vaccination plan, which will increase the pool of eligible recipients by about three times by including some essential workers and all residents aged 65 and over. The plan is to vaccinate most older adults during major drive-through events.
On the first official weekend for the drive-through events, hundreds of older adults abandoned hours-long vaccination lines at DMV facilities in Delaware City and Georgetown on Saturday. Those who arrived early or on time for their scheduled 30-minute windows waited a few hours before being vaccinated.
According to the state’s vaccine detection, approximately 70% of the 96,325 doses of Delaware were administered. Several thousand doses administered this weekend have not yet been added, meaning the dose of vaccine administered in Delaware is likely to be higher and among the top states in the country.
But the recent pressure to vaccinate as many people as possible during major vaccination events has jeopardized the second doses for those vaccinated in recent weeks with the provision of vaccines across the country.
The Delaware Medical Association said the Public Health Division told its organization that the state could not guarantee the availability of second doses and that specific sites for Delaware residents could receive them.
According to an email obtained by Delaware Online / The News Journal, the Office of Emergency Medical Services, which helped orchestrate vaccine events for first responders, has suspended all previously scheduled dates for the second vaccine dose until further notice.
Those vaccinated at the DMV events this weekend received an email to schedule a second dose online that will send them to a page with no options for future vaccine events.
Jennifer Brestel, spokeswoman for the Public Health Division, said in an email to The News Journal: “Second doses are provided as the vaccine supply to Delaware from the government allows.”
Before worrying about second doses, several older adults told The News Journal that they had difficulty navigating the online appointment system that needed to be vaccinated during the mass vaccination opportunities.
More than ten months after the pandemic hit the First State, Delaware’s vaccination plan currently depends on older adults being able to navigate a series of emails to make an appointment and set up a QR code to volunteer from. provide the vaccine to prove that they complete a medical history form for disease control and prevention centers.
Dorothy Cutting, an 86-year-old man living alone in Wilmington, first had trouble completing the “Captcha” to prove she’s not a robot, and is now waiting for an email she said she had not yet received to the next step of the process.
She describes herself as ‘not so computer savvy’ and says she mostly uses her computer for online puzzles and email. Even if she did get an appointment, a ride to the DMV facility in Delaware would be an uninterrupted location, she said.
Due to her slow reaction time, she drives for her safety and the safety of others not outside the city.
“For me, going to Delaware City is like telling me to drive to Alaska,” she said.
“The logistics are scary; it’s so difficult,” she said. “If you can not get a thousand people there to get their chance, you should not plan a thousand people.”
What caused Saturday’s backup?
The Department of Public Health said the inability of many to complete the CDC form prior to their appointments contributed to Saturday’s delay. The agency also said the event was delayed by people who showed up without appointments, more people from phase 1A than expected, and problems with equipment due to the cold.
The situation appears to have improved by Sunday afternoon when the Department of Public Health reported waiting times of one hour in Delaware City and 15 to 20 minutes in Georgetown.
The agency sent messages to those registered for the Sunday event, asking them to complete the CDC questionnaire ahead of time, a step that was not included in the state’s initial messages when it announced start of phase 1B.
To expedite Sunday’s event, the Public Health Division added state troops to both locations to assist traffic flow and moved Phase 1A health workers in Delaware City to a separate pool.
Spokeswoman Andrea Wojcik said the facilities in Delaware City and Georgetown do not have as much space as the Dover DMV plant, where the Department of Public Health tested its Phase 1B system this past weekend. The agency was able to address some traffic issues overnight.
Because the cold in Georgetown had to switch extremely cold to a paper system because computers would not work properly, some people who were vaccinated received an email that they had canceled their appointment. The Department of Health and Human Services said these emails should be disregarded.
Several people who were vaccinated during Saturday’s event said they were happy with the way the event did despite the longer waiting time than expected and that they had no problems with the online registration system to make their first appointment. do not set.
“It was excellent,” said Rolando Toccafondi, a 77-year-old from Newark who was vaccinated with his wife on Saturday after a six-hour wait. “We were shocked. Everyone was so nice. Very, very supportive. ‘
But 334 Delaware who had appointments on Saturday could not resist the guard and left the queue before being vaccinated or did not show up at all.
“It was a nightmare,” said Bonnie Siley, an 80-year-old who left the queue in Delaware City on Saturday.
Tina Alinskas spent about three hours in line with her 89-year-old mother, Theresa Somkajlo, in Georgetown on Saturday morning. She said it would not be possible for her mother to report herself or drive through the vaccination lanes.
‘There’s no chance; there are just too many steps, ‘Alinskas said. “The steps are confusing.”
What about second doses?
Alinskas received a text message on Saturday night saying she could go online to register her mother for a second dose. According to the vaccination card they received, it must take place on February 19 or later.
The only date available online was February 20 and she could not choose it.
“Maybe they’m just not ready to start making appointments yet, but I do not know why they would say to go to the website,” she said.
Others said volunteers at the DMV meetings told them there was no plan for second doses next month.
Recipients of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine should receive 21 days after the first dose, and recipients of the Moderna vaccine should receive 28 days after the first dose.
The CDC said last week that second doses can be scheduled up to six weeks after the first dose if they are not given within the recommended time period.
Government John Carney said during a virtual city hall on Tuesday night that the state needs to figure out how to make sure all the second doses are available in a timely manner, both in terms of the supply and the administration thereof.
“We keep, I think, a small amount of second doses, just like some of our providers, but there’s a bigger priority to move and get more and more people with the first dose,” Carney said. “As we move forward, supply must increase.”
In the last days of the Trump administration, outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar has urged states to offer the vaccine to older adults and stop holding back the second doses, saying the government is already going releasing its reserve doses.
Officials later clarified that all the reserve doses had already been earmarked as booster shots for people who received the vaccine, and its release would support people who needed their second dose, not new pools of people who got their first shot.
Azar said the federal government would in future include doses for new people as well as second doses in each weekly shipment. President Joe Biden outlined the policy in announcing his vaccination plan last week, according to the New York Times.
State officials said obtaining second doses to Delaware depends on how much vaccine the federal government grants the state, which they say was unequal under Trump from week to week and that it often did not estimate. Last week, the state received 18,725 doses, according to its vaccination detection.
Carney said Tuesday that the state should speed up the process to show that it can vaccinate more people than are delivered to get more doses.
“I did not want to lose the assignment in the future because we were not successful in the short term,” Carney said Tuesday.
There are approximately 70,000 Delaware residents who fall under Phase 1A and more than 200,000 who fall under Phase 1B.
Contact Brandon Holveck by [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @holveck_brandon.