COLOMBIA – Few consultations are available when South Carolina residents aged 70 and over can start signing up for the COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, so they shouldn’t expect to get an injection anytime soon, state health officials said to legislators.
A web page (scdhec.gov/vaxlocator) shows the elderly where photos are available across the state. A green dot from a healthcare professional indicates that he has doses to administer. Red means that it has already been launched or scheduled commitments for the expected stock.
“There won’t be many nominations,” said Marshall Taylor, interim director of the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control, during a hearing in the state Senate on Tuesday. “If it’s red, don’t waste time calling. The green will probably turn red very quickly.”
Taylor did not know that it would take time for doses to become more readily available to elderly people in South Carolina.
The state Senate hearing came a day after Governor Henry McMaster and DHEC announced the expansion of eligibility for anyone aged 70 and over.
An hour after the announcement, the web page had crashed. The website and the hotline provided in the statement were not ready for the immediate flood of clicks and calls, Taylor said.
“We thought when we said, ‘Look on Wednesday,’ people would start clicking on Wednesday,” Taylor told senators, questioning why people couldn’t get in.
DHEC needed a two-day break to prepare with healthcare professionals, many of whom did not know about the change in eligibility until the announcement, he said.
“What you are saying is that they will call and try to make an appointment and an appointment will not be made?” asked Sen. Tom Davis, a Beaufort County Republican, full of retirees.
Going to the DHEC website is the first in a two-step process. It will show in real time where the photos are still available, but appointments must be made with the suppliers. If a point on the map is green, it will provide contact information.
“I am afraid we are making them a big disappointment,” Senator Sandy Senn, R-Charleston, said of the elderly.
On Tuesday, 65 percent of the 147,200 doses of the Pfizer vaccine sent to South Carolina since mid-December were administered, compared with 23 percent of the doses of Moderna reserved exclusively for long-term care facilities.
Nearly 106,000 additional injections are already reserved for health professionals, officers and paramedics who made appointments ahead of the January 15 deadline that McMaster set out last week for eligible employees in the initial phase, according to DHEC.
“We saw a dramatic increase in hospital appointments with healthcare professionals” due to the deadline, said Dr. Brannon Traxler, director of public health at DHEC, during the hearing.
DHEC encourages any elderly person with the ability to access the site to do so instead of calling a hotline or waiting a long wait on the phone. And periodically check that the red squares turn into green dots.
South Carolina receives about 64,000 weekly doses from the federal government. Whether a vaccine provider will schedule appointments for doses not yet received, varies by location, Taylor said.
Until this week, South Carolina residents who do not live or work in long-term care facilities could only get a chance at hospitals across the state. Some large private medical practices may start distributing injections this week to qualified residents.
Adding people aged 70 and over to the eligibility list came after lawmakers were inundated with complaints from concerned seniors who wanted a chance. About 70 percent of all South Carolinians who have died of COVID-19 since March were 70 or older.
Other states, including neighbors North Carolina and Florida, have already elected seniors.
An appointment will be needed, Taylor said, adding that South Carolina wants to avoid the long lines outside hospitals and pharmacies in states like Florida, where people have waited hours without being able to get a vaccine before the supply runs out.
Taylor called the two-step process of finding out where the photos are available and then calling the venue for a meeting, a “short-term solution”.
“I know it’s archaic,” he said.
But it will have to do while DHEC works on an easier online application system that Taylor expects to be running next week, he said, adding that it will probably take longer.
Follow Seanna Adcox on Twitter at @seannaadcox_pc.