BOISE, Idaho — Idaho hospitals are already struggling to keep up with the demand for COVID-19 vaccines as the state expanded eligibility to those over age 65.
St. Luke's told KTVB that as of 8:20 a.m. Monday, the hospital was completely out of vaccine appointments. No more St. Luke's appointments can be made until the next shipment of doses comes in, a spokeswoman said, and it is unclear when that will happen.
"After learning our new allocations for the week and double checking our inventory calculations, we opened up 1,500 other appointments throughout our territories and it took less than 10 minutes for those to be filled," said St. Luke's senior director of pharmacy, Scott Milner. "I know some people are a little bit frustrated with that, but the good news is there's 1,500 less people waiting in line to get vaccines and as next week comes, we will open up more appointments."
Seniors trying to get their first COVID-19 shot at St. Luke's will need to continue to check the online scheduling system, myChart, to see when new appointments are available.
Saint Alphonsus also had no more vaccine sign-ups available as of 9 a.m. Monday. The hospital group announced Saturday that COVID-19 vaccination appointments would be completely canceled in Nampa and at Saint Alphonsus Medical Group clinics due to limited availability. Those who signed up for a slot at those locations will need to check back and reschedule.
The hospital system said that Saint Alphonsus locations in Boise and Oregon were still able to give out doses to those who have an appointment already.
"We regret this inconvenience for our patients and look forward to offering 1st dose to newly eligible patients when vaccine inventory is once again available," Saint Alphonsus said in a post online.
Primary Health says they are still scheduling vaccine appointments by invitation only, beginning with their most at-risk patients, based on age and health history. Patients will get an email, text or phone message, and anyone who does not respond will get a follow-up call to make sure they saw the invitation.
"We are committed to vaccinating all patients as soon as possible based on vaccine supply," a Primary Health spokeswoman said in a statement.
More than 269,000 Idahoans fall into this stage of the vaccine rollout. The rollout was expanded to those over 65 after first being made available to teachers, healthcare workers, emergency responders, corrections employees, and assisted living facility residents and workers, among others.
Due to Idaho's limited supply of doses, many healthcare providers are working to vaccinate the most vulnerable seniors first, with some only accepting appointments from people age 80 and up.
Those who are older are at greater risk from the coronavirus, health officials say, as they are more likely to experience serious or life-threatening complications of the virus, particularly if they have other health issues.
Central District Health doesn't make vaccine appointments, but they're serving as the hub for information for people looking to connect to a vaccine provider in the community.
"Within our health district, four counties, we receive anywhere from six-to-seven- thousand doses of vaccine each week," said Central District Health's public information officer, Christine Myron. "We have about 80,000 people in this 65 and older age group so what that tells us is we have a very large population to serve, we know that they are very engaged and they are very interested in seeking vaccine and so we simply don't have enough to go around at this point in time and so what that means is we have to ask for patience and persistence."
At KTVB, we’re focusing our news coverage on the facts and not the fear around the virus. To see our full coverage, visit our coronavirus section, here: www.ktvb.com/coronavirus.
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