Monday, January 18, 2021
COVID, Vaccination Confusion & More
There are so many stories being published about COVID and the impact on elders, I'm just going to include a few in this post.
I had mentioned a few weeks back that some states were circumventing the CDC recommendation on the second priority tier for vaccination. Florida is among those states, choosing to vaccinate those 65 and older. In case you weren't aware, Florida has a lot of folks 65 and older. And not enough vaccine doses for everyone. When the second batch of vaccines arrived, stories appeared regarding confusion and inefficiencies regarding signing up to receive the vaccine. (I and several of my friends can tell you first-hand accounts of this). As the New York Times described it, ‘It Became Sort of Lawless’: Florida Vaccine Rollout Turns Into a Free-for-All. It's not just Florida having this problem, as noted in Online Sign-Ups Complicate COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout For Older People.
We need to remember that not everyone has access to a computer or reliable internet-so are we leaving out an entire group in that 65 and over category eligible for the vaccine? With states left to administer the programs, Vaccination Disarray Leaves Seniors Confused About When They Can Get a Shot.
It seems to me that COVID news has been pushed off the news as the #1 story, replaced by the insurgency (rightfully so) but we shouldn't lose focus on the increasing spread of the pandemic. So we know things are going to get worse, before they get better---we haven't seen the surge from the Christmas holidays, but it's coming and very soon. Just look at what happened at Thanksgiving: COVID Kills Over 12,000 Nursing Home Residents in Weeks Surrounding Thanksgiving.
Finally, if you don't read any of these articles, read this one. COVID-19 And Congress Have Left The Senior Citizen Safety Net In Tatters explains the impact the pandemic and the economy is having on senior centers.
Whew.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/elder_law/2021/01/covid-vaccination-confusion-more.html
Comments
Excited to read Biden's Plan for a National approach!!!! With Measurable goals!
Posted by: Betty Noyes | Jan 18, 2021 3:14:26 PM
It appears to me that our federal and state governments erroneously waited to address logistical issues of shipments, distribution, communication, priorities, processes, and procedures until too close to the vaccines’ approval. The logistical experts should have been hard at work ever since last spring, developing all out kinds of hypothetical contingencies, using some basic “givens”: 1) a vaccine will come and 2) it may require a booster. Scientists could have provided an alert during their work, a la “our vaccine may require extra cold storage.” I don’t think that early study of “handling the masses” happened…. everyone was concentrating on vaccine trials.
In my state, some county health departments required appointments, but no one checked an arrival against any kind of appointment log. The auto lines were one-way, with no ability to turn around. With the goal of “get the shot in as many arms as possible,” the health care worker wasn’t going to deny a shot to, say, a 55 year old who had waited in line for 5 hours, probably wearing a Depends diaper. Other counties decided on “first come/first serve,” quickly realizing the inadvisability of that strategy.
The requirement for a 2nd shot will add to the chaos. I haven’t seen communication about the longest period one can go between shots to get the desired immunity. Sure, Pfizer said 3 weeks between shots, but that’s if everything rolled out normally. We don’t have “normal” happening. People will demand information about when they’ll have to start all over again if the 3 week timeframe is missed.
Posted by: Jennifer Young | Jan 18, 2021 6:55:10 AM