BOISE, Idaho — A few weeks into Idaho’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout, many are asking about how Idaho is handling the task of distribution and administration.
Dr. Patrice Burgess explained that in the early stages of the rollout, Idaho was slow to start but has gotten better.
“We are doing pretty well," Burgess said. "I think we had a little bit of a slow start but not unexpected."
Burgess, the chair of Gov. Brad Little's COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Committee and executive medical director for Saint Alphonsus Health System, said rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine has extra coordination considerations that contributed to the pace of distribution.
“We have to have people six feet apart, we have to schedule them that way," Burgess said. "We have to have an observation area where we can observe them for at least 15 minutes and that has to be six feet apart. We have to have medical people to watch and make that if anyone has a reaction that we are able to take care of them. So that first week or two was really a lot about the logistics for everybody to get set up."
There is hope that another vaccine could be available soon which would increase vaccine supply. For now, Idaho is expecting to get about 20,000 doses a week. The plan right now is to expand vaccine eligibility to another 500,000 Idahoans in February, creating a challenge of supply and demand.
“We will schedule people with what supply we have and then we will just have to have people hold off until we get the next supply and then we will schedule some more," Burgess said. "So, it will be an ongoing process as we balance out the supply and demand."
READ MORE: How to get the COVID-19 vaccine in Idaho
So far, Idaho reports receiving more than 100,000 doses of vaccine and just under 43,000 doses administered. That includes both first doses as well as second doses for some.
Little said Idaho is sending out its vaccines across the state as soon as they arrive.
In an interview for KTVB’s Viewpoint program, the governor explained why there is a large gap between the number of received vaccines and the number administered. He said it comes down to coordination efforts for long term care facilities as a part of Phase 1 of the rollout plan.
“The pharmacies are doing the long term care and they are doing long term care facility “A” one day and “B” the next. Well, they’ve got to have “B” and “C” vaccine available when they go there so that’s why there is a gap in the time the vaccine arrives in Idaho before it gets in arms. You have to schedule all these vaccination appointments,” Little said in the interview.
To get that partnership with long term care facilities started, according to Burgess, Idaho needed a certain amount of vaccine before they could begin the process.
“Just the beginning of this week the long-term care facility vaccinations started, that’s through a partnership with a couple of pharmacies and that had to get geared up as well," she said. "Once we get that going you will see large numbers of vaccines being administered in the long-term care facilities.”
Burgess added that the early weeks were a learning process after doing the work to prepare ahead of time.
“You never really know until you start working on it how it’s going to be," she said. "So we expected some of it but I think when we really got going we realized there were some more complexities than say the flu vaccine. With the flu vaccine we just have a bunch of people line up and we give them a flu vaccine and off they go. This is much different, we can’t have people in crowds we have to watch them for 15 minutes after. So, some of it we just didn’t quite anticipate how much it would take to set that up.'
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