When a chain of hospitals in South Florida announced this month that it had 12,000 open consultations for Covid-19 vaccinations, Anari Patel took the chance. With a medical certificate in hand to confirm that she was part of a high-risk group, she spent three hours browsing an online scheduling website.
It worked, and she got an appointment for February 19. “It was like winning the jackpot,” she said.
But the prize evaporated days later. Patel said she received a text message this week from the Baptist Health South Florida hospital chain, saying there was not enough supply. He canceled not only his appointment, but also all appointments for the first photos starting on Wednesday.
The launch of the vaccine in the United States was not perfect, but states and cities have worked to increase distribution and ensure that vaccines do not expire. Now, they are concerned that distribution may be ahead of supply. Some health care providers and cities say they are running out of doses a few days after receiving their weekly distribution, a change from a few weeks ago, when local vaccinators struggled to maintain the supplies they received.
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Covid-19 vaccines would always be in short supply after receiving US approval for emergency use just last month, but patients, hospitals and local officials say even under-allocation is unpredictable.
San Francisco said this week that the supplies its municipal health department received on Tuesday may run out by the end of Thursday, while New York City has warned that its weekly supplies may also not last until the weekend.
“This country is powerful. I don’t know why we are like this, ”said Patel, 45, who has diabetes, a high-risk disease. She said she knows that there is a national shortage of doses, but based on the number of consultations available, “we think they had the numbers”.
Baptist Health South Florida did not answer questions about what happened to their supply and did not give patients much notice of cancellations, informing them on Tuesday that all appointments for Wednesday or later were void.
“Due to restrictions on the supply of the COVID-19 vaccine, we must suspend all first-dose vaccinations for the community,” said the health system in a statement posted on Facebook.
“All appointments scheduled for January 20 and all subsequent dates are now canceled and we are not accepting new appointments,” he said. Appointments for the second dose were not affected, he said.
While President Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday promised an imminent change in federal coordination of the vaccine’s launch, states and cities are unlikely to expect an immediate increase in supplies. The number of vaccine doses sent has remained relatively stable since late December.
Vaccine manufacturers Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are scheduled to dispatch about 8.6 million doses next week, divided equally between those reserved for the first injections and the second injections, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. U.S.
In addition to next week, states did not have a good sense of what to expect, said Dr. Marcus Plescia, medical director of the Association of Territorial and State Health Officials.
“They did not receive any kind of forecast. They are a little bit in the dark about it, ”he said. State and territorial authorities are looking for answers to whether federal authorities are consuming as much supplies as they can, he added.
Bergen County, New Jersey, the state’s most populous county, is expected to run out of doses of the vaccine on Saturday despite a loading of 2,000 doses this week, NBC New York reported.
In San Francisco, Dr. Grant Colfax, the city’s health director, said the city’s dose allocation has increased and decreased, with 12,000 doses last week, but only 1,775 doses this week.
“This unreliable source makes it very difficult to plan and is one of the main reasons why we are scheduled to run out of vaccine,” he said, warning that this could happen on Thursday.
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Part of the disruption of supply was a pause in the use of a batch of vaccine doses manufactured by Moderna after some people who received them were treated for possible allergic reactions, Colfax said. The pause has already been suspended, giving a temporary boost to state supply.
The city is scheduled to open three new mass vaccination stations in the coming days, despite the unstable supply. Mayor London Breed said in a statement that these plans continued because the sites would also be supplied by private health care providers, who receive a California allocation separate from the city’s health department’s allocation.
“While we are making progress, we simply need more vaccines,” she said.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Tuesday that the city was receiving 53,000 doses of refueling this week, which, combined with last week’s unused doses, would be enough to last through Thursday or Friday -market.
“We will literally have nothing more to give,” he said at a briefing, warning that vaccination appointments may be canceled as a result.