By Will Schick | wschick@alextimes.com
Like their counterparts across Virginia, Alexandria’s healthcare workers are eager to administer the COVID-19 vaccine. Demand for the vaccine is definitely there, as more than 20,000 city residents have registered to receive the inoculation, according to the Alexandria Health Department.
Many of those 20,000 are increasingly frustrated, however, as the problem rests with the supply: The city has not come close to vaccinating – or even scheduling vaccination appointments – for all of its eligible residents.
According to the Virginia Department of Health’s online data tracker, 9,473 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Alexandria as of Wednesday. Of those who received their first dose, just under one-tenth, 905 residents, have received their second dose. The reported numbers include vaccines administered through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pharmacy partnership with Walgreens and CVS.
Per the state’s guidelines for vaccine distribution, “first responders, corrections and shelter workers, childcare employees and K-12 educators” and people over the age of 65 are the priority to receive inoculations within group 1b, the current phase of the vaccine rollout.
Yodit Gulelat, pharmacist and owner of Van Dorn Pharmacy, said that the slow rate of vaccination is not something unique to the city but reflects a broader national problem of a low COVID-19 vaccine supply. Van Dorn Pharmacy has administered the Moderna vaccine several times in the past month.
Gulelat said she believes people across the country should demand that their national leaders do more to increase the number of available vaccines.
“As a nation, we need to go out and say, ‘give us the vaccine,’” Gulelat said.
“This is something that’s killing people. You have to voice it up,” Gulelat continued. “… People are dying.”
Gulelat also added that she did not understand why the broader public was not more vocal about demanding the federal government do more to provide supplies of the vaccine.
Stacey Swartz, the owner and lead pharmacist at Del Ray Pharmacy, said her business filed to become a vaccination provider for the city at the end of last year but has yet to receive any vaccines.
“We’re set up and ready to go,” Swartz said, “We’re just waiting for there to be an ad-equate supply.”
Natalie Talis, the population health manager for AHD, said the nationwide vaccine shortage remains the primary roadblock to the city’s vaccination efforts.
“I think the biggest challenge right now is very simply, just a supply issue. We have the capacity to vaccinate thousands and thousands of people every week, but the doses just aren’t there,” Talis said.
According to Talis, the City of Alexandria is receiving less than 2,000 doses a week of the vaccine. In a press release published last week, the city announced that it will likely continue to receive this amount for the next three to four weeks.
Talis also said that “the less than 2,000 doses the city is receiving are specifically just for first doses.” She added they will eventually receive second doses for every first dose they have administered.
According to Talis, the city started to administer second doses this past Saturday and “will continue to do second dose clinics for people” as they receive more supplies.
The federal government automates the delivery of second doses and pre-designates the ratio of first and second doses to be delivered, according to Dr. Danny Avula, the state’s vaccination coordinator.
In a Virginia Department of Health tele-press conference over weekend, Avula explained that the federal government automates the delivery of second doses and pre-designates the ratio of first and second doses to be delivered.
“If you are a health system that received 10,000 doses of Pfizer, three weeks from now, which is the dosing interval for the Pfizer vaccine, you will receive another 10,000 doses of Pfizer,” Avula said.
There is currently no walk-up availability for the vaccine anywhere in the city, according to Talis.
For now, Talis said the city is continuing to vaccinate at larger scale clinics about three times every week. She also said the city is continuing to work with community providers to register all eligible people.
The process for registering and receiving the vaccine, however, has not always been clear to those who are eligible.
An Alexandria City Public Schools teacher who spoke to the Alexandria Times under the condition of anonymity, who will be referred to as “Jeff,” said some teachers are disappointed at not being able to secure appointments. Jeff said there has been general confusion on how to go about reserving appointments for second doses.
“There was a lot of frustration with the teachers, at least at my school, that not very many of them were able to successfully get an appointment,” Jeff said.
According to Jeff, confusion had led some teachers “back onto the CDC website” to broaden their search for available appointments to places as far as Manassas, Sterling and West Virginia.
A new appointment registration system will be coming online in the next few weeks, Talis said, which should help stem some of the confusion behind the appointment process.
For now, Talis said people who receive their first dose with the Alexandria Health Department do not need to schedule their second dose appointment in VAMs, the CDC website where many people schedule their first appointments.
She also asked that people check their spam and junk mail folders in case they have missed any important communications.
Talis also stated that she discourages residents from going outside their jurisdictions to receive their vaccinations.
“The challenge about going to another jurisdiction or another place is that we can’t guarantee that that jurisdiction will not cancel their appointment,” Talis said.
The reason for this, Talis said, was that “because like our allocations [of the vaccine], their allocations are also based on population numbers.”
“We’re all so anxious to be able to get that vaccination and … we all just want this to come to an end,” Jeff said.
–wschick@alextimes.com
