Allegheny Co. health director says ‘there is a long way to go’ to meet ambitious vaccine demands

Echoing the concerns of health professionals across the region, the director of the Allegheny County Health Department said he was not prepared to accommodate expanding the distribution of the covid-19 vaccine in Pennsylvania.

“I would love to say that we can vaccinate all of you who now meet these expanded criteria today,” said Dr. Debra Bogen during a news conference on Wednesday. “But the reality is that the current supply of the vaccine makes it unattainable at the moment.”

State officials announced on Tuesday that Phase 1A of vaccinations would be expanded to include people over 65 and people aged 16 to 64 with certain health problems, including cancer, kidney disease, COPD and other conditions that put them at high risk for covid-19. The expansion means that there are now 4 million people across the state who are eligible for the vaccine.

But the health department only heard about the change yesterday, Bogen said, and as it stands, the county has received less than 20,000 doses a week since the implantation began. She said Allegheny County has many vaccine suppliers eager to help administer doses as quickly as possible, but there is not enough for everyone.

The municipality is still focusing on health professionals and only scheduling vaccine appointments by invitation. Bogen said the health department will use its limited vaccine on workers that other providers may lose, in order to ensure fairness and fairness in the distribution of the vaccine.

“If you use a link to the website that was shared with you by friends or family, know that you are withdrawing an appointment from a health professional and delaying our ability to make vaccines available to a wider audience,” she said.

The health department update comes on the same day as a memo signed by medical directors of various health systems in the state about the covid-19 vaccine. Doctors indicate that there are not yet enough vaccines available for everyone who was considered eligible in Phase 1A of the Pennsylvania vaccination plan.

Bogen said residents could use a new questionnaire from the state Department of Health to determine the vaccine’s eligibility and use an online map to find a vaccine supplier. She noted that supply is limited and demand is high, so it will be a challenge to schedule anything right now. In addition, there is no central vaccine registration site for the county or for Pennsylvania as a whole, putting most of the burden of scheduling at individual clinics and hospitals. Bogen said the health department is working on a system to register vaccines at locations administered by the county.

Meanwhile, Bogen said the county’s covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths began to stabilize, falling far below what was expected after the winter break. The county’s positivity rate fell in the past week from 11.5% to 9.3%, and fewer people died in January than at this time last month.

Bogen attributes the numbers below expectations to the state’s temporary mitigation measures in the final weeks of 2020, which suspended internal meals and extracurricular activities and high school sports, among other restrictions.

“We saw this in the summer, at the beginning of the pandemic,” said Bogen. “You make strong requests for mitigation, see a plateau of cases in about two weeks and a slow, steady decline. This is exactly what we saw, again. ”

She encouraged county residents to remain vigilant, however, especially amid reports of a shortage of hospital resources in places like Los Angeles, and the emergence of two new strains of the virus that are known to be more transmissible.

“The vaccine is very exciting, but we have a long way to go,” she said.

Teghan Simonton is a staff writer for the Tribune-Review. You can contact Teghan at 724-226-4680, [email protected] or via Twitter .