SPARTANBURG – South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster has threatened to use his executive powers to force the state’s top hospitals to give more COVID-19 vaccines after the majority administered just two-thirds or less of their doses.
McMaster acknowledged on Monday that the state’s frantic effort to vaccinate against COVID-19 “is not going as fast as we would like” and said the hospital vaccine shelves “should be empty”. The main hospitals had 78,500 unused doses on Monday.
“At the moment, we have doses that have not been administered and are on the shelf,” said McMaster. “It ends. That ended. We are not doing this anymore … even if I have to order the end of elective surgeries in some hospitals to free up personnel to give these injections. “
SC hospitals lost revenue and laid off staff after offering to stop elective surgery in the first few weeks after the state’s pandemic epidemic in March. Many restarted within two months.
The governor, speaking to the media at Spartanburg Medical Center and Lexington Medical Center during a one-day visit to hospital vaccination operations, expressed confidence that the necessary follow-up booster doses would arrive in time.
This is despite the dire concerns of the medical community up to this week that, while there is ample capacity to administer injections quickly, there is no sure sign that there will be enough supply from the federal government to meet demand.
South Carolina residents aged 70 and over can schedule their COVID-19 vaccine appointment since January 13, regardless of health status or pre-existing conditions.
“Predictable delivery remains what limits the ability to go faster,” not personnel, said Lexington Medical Center CEO Tod Augsburger.
On January 11, the Midlands hospital received 950 doses, compared with 3,000 doses the previous week.
“The more we trust our capacity, the more we can make appointments,” said Augsburger. “So, we just have to make sure we keep getting the vaccine.”
Lexington Medical Center distributed about 700 doses on Monday and has 8,500 appointments scheduled in the next two weeks. The hospital has administered 60 percent of the doses it has received so far – less than the 65 percent statewide average for major hospitals and providers, according to the latest data from SC’s Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Among other major suppliers, Medical University of South Carolina administered 58 percent of the 41,925 highest doses in the state it received.
Four hospitals gave half or less of their supply.
Two hospitals in the Myrtle Beach area, the Tidelands Waccamaw Community Hospital and the Grand Strand Medical Center, are also below the state average in vaccine administration by 37% and 50%, respectively. The AnMed Health Medical Center in Anderson administered half of its doses, while Providence Health of Columbia administered 43%.
All doses sent to South Carolina so far are scheduled to be administered, Dr. Brannon Traxler, DHEC’s acting director of public health, told reporters on Monday.
Hospitals, the main suppliers of the vaccine, have requested much higher doses, while DHEC has increased eligibility for those aged 70 and over, and appointments are scheduled until spring.
DHEC reported last week that the federal government’s distribution would maintain South Carolina’s distribution at levels that are essentially static. The state had been receiving 63,000 to 64,000 doses a week.
Prisma Health, the state’s largest provider, hoped to administer 50,000 doses alone this week, said Saria Saccocio, who is helping to lead the system’s vaccination task force on Friday.
Still, McMaster relied on the hope that the two current vaccine companies – Pfizer and Moderna – are producing at a faster rate, and that by March, he said, other companies’ products should start arriving.
Vaccines are only effective when a second follow-up dose is administered a few weeks after the first.
McMaster said the “lack of communication” caused providers to hold a few doses thinking they might be needed for follow-up amid scarcity.
“We made it clear recently to everyone concerned, hospitals in particular, that that shipment, that first dose, these are the first doses,” he said. “You don’t hold this.
“These shelves should be empty,” he said. “The day the next shipment arrives, the old shipment must be in someone’s arm.”
Prisma opened on Monday two large-scale vaccination centers, one in Greenville, in the former Kmart building, and the other in Columbia, near the Williams-Brice Stadium.
Spartanburg Regional has distributed about 7,500 vaccines so far, equivalent to 93 percent of its total allocation. He is scheduled to open his large-scale facility at the University of South Carolina-Upstate on Wednesday, the chief physician, Dr. Chris Lombardozzi, told the Post and the Courier after Monday’s briefing.
“If we could distribute 5,000 to 10,000 vaccines a week, that would be fantastic,” he said. “We are ready. We’re just waiting. It is a very fluid situation. ”
The SC Hospital Association made no comment on Monday about the governor’s threat, a spokesman said.
In another show of frustration on Monday, lawmakers announced that they would convene a special committee tasked with reviewing DHEC’s management of vaccine distribution. The seven-member House committee will meet on Thursday, according to House Speaker Jay Lucas.
“We know that South Carolina is not the only one experiencing widespread frustration with vaccine administration, but it is clear that, as a state, we are advancing at an unacceptable pace,” said Rep. Weston Newton, R-Beaufort, who chairs the Legislative Oversight Committee.
In addition to the increased supply of vaccines, McMaster maintained the hope that the warmer climate could ease a crisis in hospitals that are running out of space as COVID-19 cases reach record levels.
The state saw about 3,000 new cases on Monday, according to DHEC, which is triple the daily cases reported in the peak of summer.
The state peaked in the summer, when people entered the home to use the air conditioning, he said, after which the cases dropped in the fall and again reached current levels as people crowded into the cold.
The governor stated that “we see the light at the end of the tunnel” and encouraged preventive measures such as wearing masks and social distance throughout the vaccination process.
“Good weather helps us,” he said. “The main thing that will help us in the coming weeks is our measures that we all know about.”