After a week of confusing information about the launch of the COVID-19 vaccine in South Carolina, state leaders and hospital administrators were surprised by devastating news on Friday.
The federal government reduced the early supply of first doses of COVID-19 vaccines by South Carolina in 75 Percent, according to a notice to hospital administrators at the South Carolina Hospital Association.
Now, after thousands of elderly residents in South Carolina have spent hours trying to register for appointments while the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) opened registrations for people over 70 on Wednesday, many of these consultations will have to be canceled or rescheduled.
The letter from Thornton Kirby, CEO of the SC Hospital Association, said that hospitals will receive 100 percent of the second doses requested.
“Many hospitals are likely to cancel appointments for the first dose next week,” Kirby wrote in the letter.
Kirby also said he was concerned that “hospitals are very reluctant to schedule appointments beyond next week because of the unpredictable supply.”
In a virtual meeting on Friday, Senator from SC Tom Davis broke the news to other Beaufort County officials.
“Hospitals are likely to have to cancel appointments and, even worse, you will have to redo it all over again,” said Davis. “The whole thing was just a colossal waste of time.”
Davis said the reductions are due to a lack of supply at the federal level.
“At the end of the day, what is summarizing here is that there is not enough supply of the vaccine currently being allocated to the states,” said Davis.
Hospital administrators are now in a difficult position as it is not clear how many appointments they can plan.
Beaufort Memorial Hospital officials said on Friday they were canceling more than 6,000 appointments scheduled through March. These consultations will remain unscheduled until vaccine supplies are available.
“We understand that the national supply of vaccines is somewhat limited; however, the fact that we made these requests more than a week ago and have only been notified by the state that they cannot be fulfilled is disappointing, ”said Beaufort Memorial CEO Russell Baxley said. “South Carolina hospitals have been working hard to follow state guidelines to serve the best interests of our communities, but we cannot do this without consistent and reliable supplies.”
Hilton Head Hospital CEO Jeremy Clark said on Friday afternoon that his hospital will communicate with DHEC to get a better idea of the exact dosages that will be allocated before starting to cancel or postpone appointments.
Kirby said he asked DHEC officials to give them specific allocations for each hospital, so they would not “have to guess”.
The vaccine’s launch in South Carolina has been a total disaster so far. As of Friday, SC ranked last among the country’s fifty states in terms of the number of Covid-19 vaccines it received.
According to the most recent data from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only as of January 14, 2021 6,808 vaccines were distributed to every 100,000 South Carolinaians.
This is the worst distribution rate of any state in the country – which put even more pressure on the governor’s management Henry McMaster, Will Folks, founding editor of FITSNews, reported yesterday.
“To say that McMaster stumbled, fumbled and stumbled on his way through Covid-19 is to be polite,” wrote Folks. “Furthermore, as we have often pointed out, his inconsistent treatment of the pandemic has significantly undermined his political strength.”
Now that state leaders have overestimated the number of vaccines planned, the situation looks bleak.
We will continue to report on the vaccine launch and get answers to many of these unanswered questions. Stay tuned…
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