Despite the fact the White House set a goal to provide 20 million COVID-19 vaccine inoculations by year-end, public health data shows only slightly more than 3 million Americans received their first of two doses as part of Operation Warp Speed.
Of those, only about 80,000 occurred in Arizona, with the majority in Maricopa County, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS).
Part of the problem, Arizona Daily Independent has learned, is the vaccination effort has become a massive bureaucratic event, starting with a 21-page “Vaccine Management Patient Portal” guidebook. And getting the vaccine -whether the Pfizer/BioNTech or the Moderna version- requires online preregistration and an appointment.
ADHS has established a five-phase vaccination priority plan, starting with Phases 1A, 1B, and 1C. That will be followed by Phases 2 and 3, with Phase 3 not expected to kick in until Summer 2021.
Arizona is currently in Phase 1A, which aims to vaccinate as many high-risk “frontline” healthcare workers as possible, along with residents and staff of long-term care facilities and emergency medical services personnel. However, the process across the state has gotten off to a slow and frustrating start.
For example, there are nearly 8,000 healthcare workers in Pinal County eligible for Phase 1A. Yet on Monday all nine Point of Dispensing Sites (PODS) in the county were listed as “Fully Booked” with people advised to check back Jan. 11.
There are also limited locations in Maricopa County, which led to a social media storm last weekend when only one of the five regional PODs was available countywide.
“As more vaccine is available to more groups of people, more locations will open to provide vaccine,” according to the Maricopa County’s website. “Eventually, we will reach a point where COVID-19 vaccine is available through doctors’ offices, pharmacies, clinics, outpatient providers, and other healthcare facilities, similar to how widely available the flu shot is.”
Meanwhile, as medical professionals strive to get vaccinated, some of them are expressing concern with public confusion and misunderstanding of what the vaccines mean to the overall effort to deal with COVID-19.
One nurse based in Cochise County said she is shocked that many people believe the vaccination immediately protects them against COVID-19, even though the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention warns that “it typically takes a few weeks for the body to build immunity after vaccination. That means it’s possible a person could be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 just before or just after vaccination and get sick.”
She also fears people are getting psychologically immune or numb to the COVID-19 statistics being released.
“People are tired, mentally tired, of the numbers being shouted out every day,” she said. “Even among doctors and nurses, we are just as fatigued by the numbers as our patients, friends, and family. There needs to be a different way of communicating what is happening without a litany of stats that really, quite honestly, are meaningless to most people.”
One such suggestion posted last week to the Facebook page for the Yuma County Public Health Department called for a better break down the number of positive tests and hospitalization by a percentage of the local population rather than a count.
“It doesn’t really help me or my family to know 27,000 cases have tested positive in Yuma County because most of us don’t know how many people live in our county,” Carlos Rivas posted. “But knowing what percent of people who live in Somerton or San Luis were positive last week, now that is helpful in understanding the impact.”
Rivas said he would also like to the data to include how many positive cases and hospitalizations there have been in the last 30 days.
“Why are we telling us about the numbers from months ago?” he asked. “It might help some government worker or scientists to know the total numbers from when COVID hit, but I think it’s more important to help people know what is happening now. The officials here and in Phoenix need to make the message easier to understand.”