Some people in Philadelphia are receiving coronavirus vaccines, although they may not be eligible – and the city has yet to find a way to prevent this.
Health commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said on Friday that people had been forwarding vaccination appointment links to others for weeks, but the company in charge of running the appointment software has not yet provided a solution to the problem. As a result, some people who use someone else’s appointment link are receiving photos, although they shouldn’t yet.
Despite the problem, the city has not taken any additional screening measures to ensure that the right people are vaccinated, said Farley.
“They may be medically eligible, but they were not necessarily the people invited,” said the commissioner. “So, if they are there, we vaccinate them and we will continue to vaccinate them.”
The reason for this is because one of the city’s goals is to vaccinate people as quickly as possible, so refusing some people – even if they shouldn’t have scored – would be counterintuitive, noted Farley.
Even so, he pleaded with people not to jump on the line of fire. He said the city and the company that runs the vaccine marking software are working on some sort of “workaround for next week, but it has not yet been definitively resolved.”
Next week, Philadelphia expects to receive about 19,800 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 15,600 doses of the Moderna vaccine, Farley said, adding that the federal government is also allocating about 5,000 doses of Moderna to local pharmacies.
On Sunday, February 28, about 234,000 people received their first vaccine and 110,000 received the second, said Farley. Of those vaccinated, about 23% are black, 4.5% are Hispanic and 6.4% are Asian.
Philadelphia also expects about 13,100 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. As the vaccine is only a single dose, the city is recommending that health professionals prioritize the injection for people who are difficult to access, such as transients and those who are stuck at home, said Farley.