OC Receives More Vaccine Allocations After Three Weeks of No Shipments

 

While Orange County’s vaccine rollout continues this week with a new allotment of COVID-19 vaccine, smaller counties in the state continue to face uncertainty regarding how much vaccine supply they will receive.

In January, the Orange County Health Department did not receive any first dose allotments of COVID-19 vaccine from the state for three weeks in a row. During the week of February 2, the health department saw a slight improvement, receiving 600 first dose allotments.

Despite receiving this new vaccine supply, there have been continuing concerns among North Carolina county health department directors, and those set to receive shots, about inconsistent shipments of doses. Some of the confusion is over which level of government has the ability to allocate vaccines to each county.

Orange County Health Director Quintana Stewart recently spoke with 97.9 The Hill. She said vaccine dose allocations start at the federal level.

“It was not just Orange County that went multiple weeks with no allocation but several counties, local health departments and hospitals received very little or no allocation for multiple weeks,” Stewart said.

She said many of the vaccines allocations were diverted to some of the “mega-mass” vaccination centers across the state. The lack of first dose allotment to other providers, however, does not affect or delay second vaccines for community members who have received their first shot.

To address the shortage locally, Stewart said Dr. Mandy Cohen of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services reached out about inconsistent shipment schedules.

“They were very transparent and they reached out to all the counties to explain what happened and why it happened that way,” Stewart said.

North Carolina now gives each county a base allocation of vaccine doses based on population. Allocation is spread through all vaccine providers in the county – not just the local health department.

“So for us at the Health Department, our base allocation now is 200 first doses each week for at least the next three weeks,” Stewart said.

Currently, the Orange County Health Department said it might take weeks or even months to schedule an appointment for the vaccine – but the 600 new doses will help.

UNC Health – one of the largest vaccine providers in North Carolina – will receive more than 13,000 first doses this week of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine. About 6,000 of those doses will be administered at the vaccination clinics in Orange County at the UNC Medical Center, Hillsborough campus and the Friday Center. Additionally, UNC Health says the Friday Center vaccine clinic is slated to administer more than 4,600 second doses this week.

 

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