Vaccine doses coming to Pa. hospitals 'don't match up' to increased demand, health leaders say

Vaccine allocations to Western Pennsylvania hospitals aren’t enough to inoculate all who are eligible, health care leaders said Tuesday.

State officials last week expanded phase 1A of the distribution plan beyond health care workers and long-term care residents – to include people older than 65 and people with various health concerns. The change came days after health officials learned the federal stockpile of vaccine was depleted, and disruptions in supply were likely to occur as a result. Some systems last week paused vaccine appointments because all available doses had been accounted for.

And on Tuesday, Gov. Tom Wolf and Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam lamented a “frustrating” supply issue with the vaccine in Pennsylvania.

After repeated inquiries from the Tribune-Review, a Department of Health spokesman said the expansion was made to align with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and “because it fits Pennsylvania’s goal to rollout covid-19 vaccinations in a way that prioritizes people, while the vaccine supply remains limited, who receive the vaccine to maximize benefits and minimize harms caused by the virus, promote justice, mitigate health inequities and promote transparency.”

But health experts say the expansion has done little to get vaccine to those who need it most, noting that nearly 4 million people are now eligible. Dr. Don Whiting, chief medical officer at Allegheny Health Network, said AHN receives an average of around 10,000 doses each week, and their arrival is irregular. The network has the workforce capacity to administer roughly double that each week, if only they had the supply.

“There are several million people, so the numbers just don’t match up,” Whiting said. “The state change in the age groups was driven by the federal change in the age groups, which was driven by more of a national view of how things were going in different states. … I think the messaging does, in the average person, create some confusion.”

Barry Ciccocioppo, a health department spokesman, said the state is asking the federal government for the maximum allotment of vaccine available. The commonwealth does not have its own vaccine stockpile, he said.

“We are asking Pennsylvanians to be patient,” he said. “This is a global pandemic and vaccine manufacturers are working to provide doses across the globe.”

Ciccocioppo said providers in the state are receiving a “steady flow” of around 140,000 doses a week. But health leaders in the region indicated that vaccine arrival is much less predictable.

Dr. Carol Fox, chief medical officer at Excela Health, said the system is expecting an additional allocation of vaccines “in the coming weeks.”

“We do not know, at this time, how frequently to expect more allocations,” she said in a statement. “We are hopeful that as supply becomes more plentiful, we will be the recipients of even more vaccines.”

Tami Minnier, UPMC chief quality officer, said the system has not yet received notification on when and how much new vaccine is coming to support the expansion of phase 1A.

“We are eager to vaccinate more people in the communities we serve and have the infrastructure, staff and clinics to do so,” she said in a statement. “When we are notified that more vaccine is on its way to support the expanded phase 1A group, we will engage the public and give clear instruction on how to request vaccination.”

The latest vaccine update comes during a slow vaccine rollout marred by confusion and inconsistencies in distribution. Meanwhile, the U.S. is racing to administer vaccines as quickly as possible, while new, more transmissible virus variants threaten the population. President Joe Biden this week pledged to administer 100 million shots of the vaccine in his first 100 days in office – a pace of 1 million shots per day.

At this rate, Biden said he hopes to have everyone who wants a vaccine inoculated by spring.

Health leaders are eager to contribute to the goal – though they’re unsure of how it can be achieved at the current rate in Pennsylvania. Whiting noted that health leaders in Pennsylvania aren’t privy to the specifics of the federal stockpile and the measures to increase production line efficiency in vaccine manufacturing.

“I don’t think (Biden) would say it unless he had the information that it was doable, which would be very encouraging to all of us,” Whiting said.

From the beginning, Whiting said, the U.S. vaccine rollout was not met with a unified national response, which could have contributed to the miscommunication as well as manufacturing delays. He said the addition of more vaccine options – like those from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, which are anticipated to be approved for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration – will be crucial to picking up the pace.

“There are a lot of things going on to make this smoother and better,” he said. “Transparency and consistency of message, I think, are the two things that are in our control right now.”