Courtesy Idaho Statesman
BOISE (Idaho statesman) – Idaho statesmen identified several thousand doses of the COVID-19 vaccine that were sent to Idaho, reserved for a federal public-private partnership – and were then not used.
More than 10,000 of the doses are being returned to state control this weekend for use at the next vaccination clinics.
“We are working with (the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) on the relocation of doses from the Pharmacy Partnership for Long-Term Care,” said Idaho Health and Wellness spokesman Niki Forbing-Orr. “We know that we are receiving more than 10,000 doses back in our state distribution by Sunday.”
The federal pharmacy program was created to assist in the distribution of vaccines in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, with the main pharmacy chains to maintain clinics on the premises.
Walgreens and CVS were tasked with vaccinating the people who live and work in these facilities – which are among the hardest hit by the pandemic. About three-quarters of all long-stay institutions in Idaho have had at least one case of COVID-19 among employees or residents, according to state records.
A large portion of Idaho’s coronavirus vaccine doses (33,150) were allocated to this program. All of them were transferred to drugstore chains, Idaho immunization program manager Sarah Leeds said on Tuesday.
But a Walgreens spokesman explained that nursing homes and healthcare facilities in Idaho overestimated how many doses would be needed.
SLOW ROLOUT OF THE FEDERAL PHARMACY PROGRAM FOR COVID-19 VACCINES
Pharmacies administered only 6,186 of those 33,150 doses as of January 19, and have yet to reach more than 80 establishments that have enrolled in the program, according to a presentation to the Idaho Coronavirus Vaccine Advisory Committee. Walgreens gave 4,490 doses and CVS gave 1,696, the presentation said.
That number grew by a few thousand in the next week and a half. CVS and Walgreens administered a total of 10,433 doses at long-term care facilities in Idaho as of January 28, according to federal data. That left more than 20,000 still unused at that point.
Meanwhile, Idaho public health officials and local health care providers have said that the biggest bottleneck they faced was not having enough vaccine to give people who wanted it.
Idaho Governor Brad Little briefly commented on the slow pace of the federal program during a news conference on Thursday. He said CVS administered at least the first injection to “all those responsible”, but did not hear from Walgreens about its progress.
Little said pharmacies are “a little behind on their reports” because of a multi-step process for vaccine records to reach the federal government and then return to Idaho.
But he said pharmacies have pledged to have all vaccines administered or scheduled by this weekend.
“I have no reason not to believe them, but I think the reports are overdue. I know the reports are late, ”he said.
NURSING HOUSES HIT BY COVID-19; STILL SOME VACCINE DECLINED
A corporate spokesman for Walgreens told the Idaho Statesman that the company is working to put extra doses back into general circulation in places like Idaho. The spokesman gave two explanations for the unused doses:
“The company has completed first dose clinics at all qualified nursing facilities in Idaho that have selected Walgreens as a vaccine supplier. We also run first-dose vaccine clinics in 129 of 143 assisted living facilities and are on track to complete the remaining clinics by the end of the month, ”said Walgreens in an email statement.
“As institutions registered with the CDC Pharmacy Partnership Program for Long Term Care, they provided an estimate of how many vaccines would be needed. In many cases, they overestimated the number of doses required due to fluctuations in occupancy levels and the impact of vaccine hesitation, ”he said.
Some health professionals have refused to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Research has found that they do not trust the vaccine to be safe – despite large clinical trials and few serious reactions – or feel they do not have enough information about it.
Nursing homes have even resorted to offering gift cards or paid time off in hopes of attracting their employees to get vaccines, NPR reported.
“Just before the scheduled clinics, Walgreens works with each facility to check the number of vaccines they need based on who registered to receive the vaccination,” said the spokesman. “This minimizes any overdoses from individual clinics.”
Walgreens is “working hand in hand” to find the best way to vaccinate the most vulnerable in Idaho – and the options have been to offer unused doses to people in their stores or return them to the state for distribution, the port said. -voice.
“We would like to know a little more” about the launch of the COVID-19 vaccine in long-term care facilities, Idaho’s chief epidemiologist, Dr. Christine Hahn, said on Tuesday.
“We will try to do a little information gathering and get more information,” she said. “We can see through the federal data system how many residents have been vaccinated in their population, but we don’t know from the workers what percentage of absorption there is.”