CHARLESTON, W.Va. — There are more doses of COVID-19 vaccines available in West Virginia this week than any other time during the pandemic but Gov. Jim Justice said Wednesday the state must “catch another gear” to get more shots in arms.
According to numbers from state Department of Health and Human Resources Secretary Bill Crouch, there remain more than 7,000 state residents 80 and older who have signed up for a vaccine on the EverBridge system but haven’t yet gotten one; more than 23,000 residents between 70-79 and approximately 18,000 residents between 65-69 years old.
“We gotta fix it,” Justice said. “We’ve just got to make it better, that’s all there is to it.”
The state has vaccinated more than 65% of its elderly residents but as the numbers indicate, there’s more work to do, Justice said at Wednesday’s media briefing.
“It gives me the motivation to go back and double-check and find the methodology that can maybe even do better than what we’ve already done. What we’ve already done is fabulous, there’s no question about that, but we need to always try and reach out and do better,” Justice said.
The governor’s office said Wednesday that more than 215,000 West Virginians 65 and older have chosen to be vaccinated with 136,650 who are now fully vaccinated.
Crouch said EverBridge and the state are working with local health departments to forward the names of older residents who have been on the vaccination list for more than three weeks to those local departments in hopes of getting them a vaccination scheduled soon.
Crouch said the numbers are always moving.
“We’re getting about 26,000 new individuals into the (EverBridge) system weekly. So a lot of those are elderly individuals who are just now registering,” Crouch said.
Crouch and other members of Gov. Justice’s coronavirus task force urge residents who haven’t heard from EverBridge to call the state hotline at 1-833-734-0965. Registration can be made at vaccinate.wv.gov.
Adding to the list through parallel paths
Meanwhile, the state is working with health care clinics and primary care providers to contact their patients to get them on the list.
“It’s a great outlook for us to get additional people, who either won’t sign up centrally or may need a little bit of motivation from their (health care) providers to get the vaccine,” state InterAgency Task Force Director for Vaccinations Jim Hoyer said.”
The state task force is also working creating parallel paths in delivering vaccines to the population. Hoyer said including:
–mobile clinics are being set up in communities to vaccinate employees of retailers and manufacturers
–a partnership with West Virginia Voluntary Organizations Active In Disaster (VOAD), West Virginia Council of Churches and the Benedum Foundation to provide vaccinations for grandparents who are the main caregivers for their grandchildren
–an effort with other agencies to reach approximately 2,400 homebound residents
Pharmacies like Fruth and Walgreens are working with the state but in large part handling their own vaccination distribution plans. Several dozen independent pharmacies will do the same.
Vaccine becoming more prevalent
State Coronavirus Czar Dr. Clay Marsh said there’s now approximately 70,000 doses of COVID-19 flowing into the state a week and the state has decentralized distribution.
“There are several different places where people can access vaccine including their pharmacies, including federally qualified health centers, including hospital clinics,” Marsh said during an appearance Wednesday on MetroNews “Talkline.”
.@ClayMarsh joins @HoppyKercheval to discuss the continuing efforts to distribute vaccines across the Mountain State. WATCH: https://t.co/yCFQ3nDJuy pic.twitter.com/ETw0JQnmYi
— MetroNews (@WVMetroNews) March 17, 2021
Marsh said he can see the day in the weeks to come when large open vaccination clinics will be held, much like a flu clinic.
“We may be able to have sufficient vaccine to have vaccines in many, many places like you would have a flu vaccine today so that we cannot bottleneck the ability of people who are eligible to find a place where they can vaccinated as soon as we can,” Marsh said.
The future of EverBridge
DHHR Secretary Crouch said EverBridge hasn’t been perfect but it’s done what it was originally designed to do and that is to take the phone call pressure off of county health departments when the state vaccination program began.
“We now have over 390,000 individuals who have registered in the system who would have been calling folks on the local level,” he said.
Justice said now is not the time for the state to rest.
“This thing (the virus) can tick back up. The sun’s shining and a lot of people are getting vaccinated. You’ve got to be careful, wear your masks for just a little while longer,” Justice said. “Get vaccinated. Everybody get vaccinated.”