Getting Vaxxed in Cooper Country, Update
The Seattle Times is doing an expose on what is going on with the vaccination program, at least in Washington State. Multiple issues:
1. The Feds. Besides lying to the nation about how many doses they have shipped and those that remain in stockpile, etc., they apparently have lied, misled, or mis-informed states on the size of shipments and projected arrival dates. In turn, planning and scheduling by state officials is faulty.
2. Washington State has compounded the above problem in multiple ways. First, they were very slow to grasp the full nature of vaxxing six million people twice. By September they began selecting software programs that could track shipments, register individuals, offer and record appointments, and give prompts to people when and where to receive their shots. These programs would also inform the feds. A program that had been used for several years to track Seasonal Flu vaxxing was selected. However, WA ST officials decided they needed to upgrade the program for Covid vaxxing due to "security concerns." The software company promised the software changes would be ready by November. They weren't, and only delivered the software in December as the first shipments of vaccines were heading out on the freight trucks.
Washington State has a three-pronged distribution program: small pharmacies in small towns, such as Eatonville, and CVS and Fred Meyer (Kroger) in the suburbs and cities. One small pharmacy in Bremerton, across the water from Seattle, was interviewed by the Seattle Times. This drug store was the only approved vaxing site in that county, which has a couple hundred thousand people living there. The pharmacy has four employees and received 300 doses in late December, but only received the software last week. In the interim, that pharmacy has to record everything by hand, answer all phone calls, and make appointments individually, overwhelming the small staff.
3. Local: My pharmacy in Eatonville is the only vaxing site in southern Pierce County and is rural "Cooper Country." But this county is huge and is the home of Tacoma and McChord Air Base, and has 800,000 residents. CVS and Fred Meyer are handling everything north of me to Tacoma. My pharmacy had no external signage giving instructions to the public on the vaccines as of last week. Their website is up and running, however, and is user-friendly, including their appointment calendars. However, the website calendar says they have no appointments available through the end of March.
When I try to navigate the CVS websites, they are nearly impossible to get information, let alone an appointment. Worse, all the CVS's in the southern half of the county are inside a Target, which suggests that handling hundreds, if not thousands of individuals for a vax will be complicated if not endangering many needlessly to Covid exposure. How long will people have to wait in line for a vax? Unknown at this time. What happens if someone has a side-reaction???
I did have a bit more good fortune at Fred Meyer. Their website is somewhat navigable, and tells people that doses are not currently available. Regardless, I went to my nearest Freddie's - where I usually shop for groceries - and the pharmacy there appeared completely unprepared for any vaccination program: no signage, no chairs, no place to sit and wait for the 15 minutes to see if any side-effects occur, etc. I talked with the pharmacist on duty, a young gal about 25-30, and she did not seem prepared to answer questions about the vaccine, let alone assist in a major public undertaking. Nevertheless, she was pleasant and said she didn't think the vaccines would be ready for another "couple of weeks." This is in a major injection site and the State was supposed to be administering doses to first-responders and health workers weeks ago.
Apparently, WA State is using only the Moderna vaccine, which does not need the fancy freezers that Pfizer requires. Thus, small pharmacies do not need a big infrastructure to handle vaxing lots of people. But they do need nurses and some special areas inside the stores to safely handle everyone, and I don't see that at all.
How the Covid Vaccination program got so screwed-up, even down to the local town level is mind-boggling. I really don't understand it.
