Pa. health official: Focus should be on covid vaccinations, not allocations

The state Department of Health continues to try and meet the demand for covid-19 vaccines, particularly first doses, an ongoing struggle when requests from providers outnumber the state’s total allocation by nearly 200,000, a health official said Wednesday.

The federal government sent 254,150 dedicated first-shot doses to Pennsylvania’s health department this week, said Barry Ciccocioppo, the department’s covid-19 response spokesman. Providers across the state requested 425,000 first doses.

He said the focus should not be on how many vaccines are going to any particular county or provider, as county officials like those in Westmoreland raise concerns about being shortchanged and providers like St. Clair Hospital cancel appointments.

“The focus shouldn’t be on, ‘How many doses can I get for my county — for my county — for my county,’” Ciccocioppo said. “It should be, ‘How many people in my county are getting vaccinated?’ We need to focus on people and the people who are getting vaccinated.”

Westmoreland County officials met earlier this week with several state lawmakers to discuss a lack of communication and disparity in vaccine allocation.

Ciccocioppo said about 18% of the county’s population has been vaccinated – higher than the 15% statewide – and an extra 6,500 doses have been sent.

“Health care is not delivered at the county level,” he said. “Health care is delivered across regions, usually by large regional health systems. That is where the vaccine is getting to, and they’re … putting it into the arms of people in counties not only where the vaccine is delivered, but across the counties that they serve and the people that they serve.”

The department on Wednesday provided a breakdown of how it determines the number of vaccines that will go to each provider.

That decision is based on two things, the first being by county need. The need of a particular county is based on four separate weighted factors: the population over the age of 65 (weighted at 30%), the total population (weighted at 20%), the number of covid cases (weighted at 20%) and the number of covid deaths (weighted at 30%).

The second prong of the decision-making looks at provider capacity – the number of vaccines requested by a particular provider and their ability to administer and store the vaccine.

“It’s not just population that matters,” Ciccocioppo said. “It’s making sure we can get the vaccine to every corner of the state and every corner of every county.”