Despite the struggle to intensify the US vaccination campaign against COVID-19 and bring the country back to normalcy, the suggestion of the first three months of the rollout is not increasingly better.
A surprising new analysis found that states such as South Carolina and Florida raced ahead of others to offer vaccines to ever-larger groups of people, vaccinating small shares of their population compared to those who live in Hawaii. And move more slowly and organically, such as Connecticut. .
As experts see, the explanation is that the rapid expansion of eligibility created too large a demand to handle demand in some states and caused serious dislocation. Vaccine supplies proved to be inadequate or unpredictable, websites crashed and phone lines jammed, causing confusion, disappointment and resignation among many.
“The infrastructure was not ready yet. This is a type of backfire, ”said Dr. Rebecca Wurtz, an infectious disease physician and health data specialist at the Minnesota School of Public Health. He said: “To satisfy everyone, the governors satisfied some and disappointed many.”
The findings may have an important go-slow lesson for the country’s governors, many of whom have dramatized their rollout in the last few days after being challenged by President Joe Biden to make all adults eligible for vaccination by May 1 The extension is announced.
“If you’re more targeted and more focused, you can do a better job,” said Sema Sagair, executive director of Sergo Ventures, a nonprofit health-data organization that conducted the analysis in collaboration with the Associated Press . “You can open it – if you’ve set up the infrastructure to get all those people vaccinated fast.”
Several factors accelerated the state’s vaccination performance. Conspiracy theories, poor communication, and reliable shipments slowed efforts after the first vials of the precious vaccine arrived on 14 December.
But the size of the eligible population was always under the control of state officials, who made widely different decisions about how many people they invited to bring in line when there was not enough vaccine to go around.
When the drive began, most states placed health care workers and nursing home residents at the front of the line. In doing so, states were following the national recommendations of experts, who suggested making every effort to reach everyone in those two groups before moving on to the next categories.
But facing political pressure and public quarrels, the governor stepped forward. Both the outgoing Trump administration and the incoming Biden team urged older Americans to open up vaccinations.
By the end of January, more than half of the states had opened to older adults – some 75 and up, others 65 and up. Then the real problems started.
South Carolina expanded eligibility for people in Steven Kite’s age group. 13. The 71-year-old kite immediately booked the vaccination at a hospital. But the next day, his appointment was canceled along with thousands of others due to lack of vaccine.
“It was disappointing at first,” Kite said. After a week of uncertainty, he rescheduled. He and his wife have now been vaccinated. “It’s working right out. I know he had other problems. Dose deliveries have been very unreliable. “
In Missouri, where more than half of adults were eligible for shots, the lack of large cities sent hundreds of miles of vaccinated seekers to rural towns. Dr. Elizabeth Bergamini, a pediatrician in suburban St. Louis, frequently told about 30 people who had vaccinated events after she opened eligibility for those 65 and older in the state who opened eligibility at age 18 And then expanded it.
“We went from needing to vaccinate an additional half million people to several million people in the St. Louis area, but we still didn’t get that first group vaccinated, so it’s crazy,” Burgamini said. “It’s just been a whole hot mess.”
The Chief Medical Officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, Drs. “It got a bit chaotic,” said Marcus Plecia. “We created far more demand than supply. This emphasized the system and may make the system less efficient. “
Plassia said the analysis shows that “a more methodical, measured, prudent, priority-based approach – regardless of people’s perception – can actually be efficient, or more efficient, opening things up and making it available to more people Instead of getting it done. “
In retrospect, health workers and nursing home residents were easy groups to vaccinate. Doses could be delivered to where they lived and worked.
“We knew where they were and we knew who they were,” Wurtz said. As states moved beyond those populations, it became difficult to find the right people. Nursing home residents live in nursing homes. People 65 and older live everywhere.
In early March West Virginia stepped up the trend to both higher residents and higher vaccination rates, but the state started off slow and built its capacity before expanding eligibility.
Likewise, Alaska maintained a high vaccination rate with a small eligible population, then opened up shots to everyone until March 16 and older. This large increase in eligible adults by the end of the study led AP and Sergio Ventures to move out of Alaska. Analysis.
The analysis found that as of March 10, Hawaii had the lowest percentage of its adult population eligible for vaccination, about 26 percent. Yet Hawaii gave 42,614 doses per 100,000 adults, the eighth-highest rate in the country.
Thirty percent of Connecticut’s adult population was eligible by the same date and gave the dose at the fourth highest rate in the country.
In contrast, Mississippi had the sixth largest percentage of its adult population, about 83 percent. Nevertheless, Mississippi administered only 35,174 total doses per 100,000 adults, ranking 43rd among states.
Missouri, which has 61 percent of its population eligible, distributed 35,341 doses per 100,000 adults.
Seven states in the lower 10 – Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina and Missouri – were eligible for large-to-average share shots of their residents for overall vaccination performance.
Among high-performing states, five in the top 10 for higher vaccination rates – New Mexico, North Dakota, Connecticut, Wyoming, and Hawaii – stuck with more restrictive eligibility. Top 10 – One and two high-performing states from South Dakota and Massachusetts averaged how many residents were eligible for the vaccine.
The former head of the Food and Drug Administration, Drs. “This is an in-depth analysis that has seen an increase in eligibility and vaccination rates in states that were not included in the new analysis, but reviewed it for AP,” said Mark McCallan.
Better-performing states may receive more attention to vaccine supplies, fully vaccinating high-risk groups, and then more slowly opening up to additional categories as they wait for supplies, McClellan said.
What happens next will depend on how much states can improve their vaccine delivery systems and whether Americans remain eager for vaccination, even if the threat is protected by more people and easing with dropping case numbers.
“Have states used this time wisely and fruitfully to lay the necessary infrastructure to open it to more people?” Sagir asked.
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