The vaccine distribution challenge

Having a vaccine for COVID-19 is wonderful. Being able to make it available to everyone who needs it is a big challenge.

With cases spiking to over 10 million, the virus is everywhere, and spreading deeply into every corner of the country. This is where the Biden administration will face its biggest challenge, especially as it pertains to rolling out a potential vaccine.

My home state of Texas is a great example. A 2016 report from the Texas Department of State Health Services illustrates the terrible state of rural health care. According to DSHS, 235 of Texas’ 254 counties were medically underserved. There were many isolated counties with little to no access to health care. Some even lacked a single doctor.

This has been a crisis a long time in the making. As the Texas Observer recently noted, in 2019, Texas budgeted $17.7 million for infectious disease surveillance, prevention, and epidemiology—and over $400 million for border security. So even when a vaccine is delivered, it will be going to a state that is understaffed and underfunded.

Lipscomb County, population 3,302 as of 2010, in the northeast corner of the Texas panhandle, doesn’t have a doctor. It is worth noting that Lipscomb County is a 550-mile drive from Austin. Portland, Maine, is a closer drive to Washington, D.C., than those 3,302 isolated souls.

Given this isolation and lack of resources, the vaccines themselves present a logistical challenge alone that borders on the impossible for rural America. The Pfizer vaccine, now the leading contender, will require ultra-cold storage of at least -94 degrees Fahrenheit and two rounds of shots. Another leading vaccine candidate from Moderna also requires cold storage, albeit not to the same extent, according to the company. Typically, hospitals and large clinics have this capability. Small towns lacking even the most basic health clinics do not.

To deploy the Pfizer vaccine or any other one, health planners will have to figure out a way to deliver it to rural areas while maintaining its required temperature long enough to ensure that the population receives both doses. This scene will be repeated all across small-town America. This presents a big risk: An uncoordinated federal roll out of vaccines requiring ultra-cold storage could leave state and local governments competing for resources much like they were competing for PPE earlier in the pandemic.

The Trib expands on this.

How effectively public health officials can prioritize and distribute millions of doses of the new vaccines across a state that covers 270,000 square miles and more than 170 rural counties will determine how quickly Texas turns a corner in a pandemic that is again surging across the state and pushing hospitals to the brink in West Texas and the Panhandle.

The task is made more difficult because the Texas Department of State Health Services, which is largely responsible for the distribution effort, won’t know which vaccines it’s receiving, and how many doses, until one or more is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

They will also have to combat misinformation and persuade vaccine skeptics — and those unnerved by the coronavirus vaccines’ historically swift development — of the benefits of being inoculated. World Health Organization experts have said that up to a 70% vaccine coverage rate for COVID-19 may be needed to reach population immunity through vaccination. In the 2019-20 flu season, only about 37% of adults younger than 65 received a flu vaccine. The rate was about 65% for seniors.

“We haven’t seen any efforts that are this broad since probably a polio vaccination in the 1950s,” said Dr. Mark McClellan, a former head of the FDA who has advised Abbott about the pandemic.

“The people who are most likely to benefit from vaccination are people who may have difficulty connecting to health care,” such as elderly people and residents of low-income communities who often lack health insurance, he added — compounding the logistical challenges.

The vaccine is expected to initially be in short supply, and will be first distributed to a state-selected group of people considered to be essential workers or most vulnerable to being severely sickened.

[…]

It’s still unclear, beyond a list of murky priority groups such as health care workers, who will get the vaccine during the initial months when supplies are scarce. In the coming weeks, a state panel of experts is expected to publish more specific recommendations about who will be eligible for a vaccine and when.

Early estimates from the Texas Department of State Health Services found there are more than 5 million people who are vulnerable or work in front-line jobs that increase their exposure risk. That includes more than 3.9 million people who are 65 or older, more than 638,000 health care personnel, more than 327,000 acute care hospital employees, more than 137,000 nursing home residents and more than 66,000 emergency medical workers.

The state’s adult population also includes more than 9.4 million Texans with underlying medical conditions that could increase their risk for severe illness associated with COVID-19.

So yeah, it’s a big problem, and there are many questions that need to be answered, some of which will spark heated debate. In the meantime, as both stories noted, the pandemic rages on, meaning we could be trying to vaccinate people while we’re still in conditions that still demand social distancing and will put everyone involved in the process at risk. So you know, maybe we should try a little harder to contain the spread right now. Just a thought.

UPDATE: From the Trib:

Health care workers will be the first people in Texas to receive a COVID-19 vaccine once one receives emergency approval from the U.S. government, and on Monday a state panel of vaccine experts and politicians revealed which workers in the health field will receive top priority.

The “first tier” recipients, according to the panel’s new guidelines, include:

  • Hospital-based nurses, doctors, custodians and other workers who have direct contact with patients
  • Staff of nursing homes or other long-term care facilities who work directly with residents
  • Emergency medical services providers such as paramedics and ambulance drivers
  • Home health aides who manage “vulnerable and high-risk” patients

Certainly reasonable. We’ll see how it goes after that.

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One Response to The vaccine distribution challenge

  1. David Fagan says:

    Anybody want mine?

    I don’t want to be first for anything.

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