W.Va. vaccinations open to 70 and older, but demand still exceeds supply so far

Gov. Jim Justice has opened up West Virginia’s covid vaccinations to residents 70 and older, but officials also caution that demand is likely to exceed supply right now.

James Hoyer

“I think health departments are clearly stressed,” said James Hoyer, director of West Virginia’s Joint Interagency Task Force on the vaccine effort.

“Our system in this country was not designed from a health standpoint to deal with a pandemic this size. So we’re trying to do the best we can to help take pressure off.”

Justice announced Wednesday that residents 70 and older would be eligible for the state’s “Save Our Wisdom” program. West Virginia has already been offering vaccine shots to people above age 80.

“We’re going to push and push and push and, absolutely as quickly as we know we’re going to have that significant amount of vaccines that are going to give us the ability to go to 65, we’re going to 65,” Justice said during a regular coronavirus briefing.

Many West Virginia health departments were already describing waiting lists with hundreds of names just with the prior age designations. The departments said they would give out as many vaccine doses as they had on hand, but supplies were often limited.

A first-come, first-serve vaccination clinic in Martinsburg this morning experienced long lines and quickly ran out of the 650 doses available.

The Kanawha-Charleston Health Department announced that a call center would open at 1 p.m. today to make appointments for a Saturday vaccination clinic. “Call volume for appointments is expected to be high,” the health department stated.

By 1:50 p.m. the health department put out an update saying all appointments for Saturday’s clinic were already filled. “The next time KCHD has vaccines available, we will announce it.”

Hoyer, speaking on MetroNews’ “Talkline” today advised residents to refer to a full schedule and contact information for appointments. The state also has a covid-19 vaccination telephone line at 1-833-734-0965. He also advised remaining in touch with local health departments to the extent possible.

“People have to be patient. We know West Virginians, particularly in that 70 and above and probably that 60 and above age range who are familiar with vaccines, particularly the polio vaccine, they want this,” Hoyer said.

West Virginia’s approach to vaccination remains aggressive, Hoyer said, but the state would like to receive an even greater supply from the federal government.

“We continue to press them and tell them we are showing that we can get doses out to people’s arms and because of that they should be sending us more doses,” Hoyer said.

“They have committed to us that they will send us more doses, but we still don’t have the definitive timeline for when those doses would come out.”

Appearing today on cable television’s “Fox & Friends,” Justice described every dose of available vaccine in West Virginia as either being distributed or accounted for by a name on a list.

He described the approach as a sense of urgency.

“This is just count the egg-sucking cows in the field. It’s not count the legs and divide by four. This is not rocket science,” Justice said on national television. “But you’ve got to move. In a pandemic, you can’t sit on your hands and work out a system or develop a committee. You’ve got to move.”

Asked about national priorities to vaccinate everyone over 65, Justice said, “West Virginia’s gonna get it done and get it done right now. I mean, if they’ll get us the vaccines, we’ll have everybody 65 and over completely vaccinated by Valentine’s Day. The question is whether they’ll get us the vaccines to be able to do that.”

County health departments say they’re distributing vaccine supplies as soon as they’re available, but it’s sometimes hard to tell when that will be. Meanwhile, some have acknowledged overloaded phone lines.

V.J. Davis, president of the West Virginia Association of Local Health Departments, acknowledged demand has been heavy.

“We’re ready to start vaccinating people. We just need the vaccine, and we’re ready to step up and do our part,” Davis said.

“We’re kind of at the mercy of what we get in the state as far as vaccine. We’ve had very limited supply of the vaccine so far.”

Davis advised people to try to remain patient.

“As vaccine becomes more available to us, I think you’re going to see more clinics,” he said. “You’re going to see the ability to get that vaccine will be a little easier. I firmly believe every single West Virginian who wants the vaccine will get the vaccine.

“We need need to be a little patient just because the supply is not meeting the demand right now. And there’s really nothing we can do about that right now. We have to kind of wait on the federal government to send that to us. I think patience is the key right now.”





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