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GOP slams vaccine rollout

Wolf administration criticized for state’s ‘underperformance’

Republicans have accused the Wolf administration of COVID-19 vaccination underperformance.

The state has been reserving second doses of COVID-19 vaccines for people who have gotten their first shots, increasing the percentage of not-yet-administered doses in comparison to states that have been taking a different approach, so those states might look better than Pennsylvania on some statistics, Department of Health spokeswoman April Hutchinson said in a news conference Friday.

Republicans are calling her explanation “spin,” without ack­nowledging the shortfall seems to be an outcome of administration policy, rather than performance.

“Pennsylvania has 50 percent of available vaccine sitting on shelves and more vaccine is on the way from the federal government,” GOP House Caucus spokesman Jason Gottesman stated in a news release. “For this administration to say there is a shortage of supply to get people on their way to immunity is a lie and an obfuscation of their responsibility.”

The policy of withholding second doses reflects the state having adopted only one of two aspects of an amended federal policy outlined by then-Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Jan. 11.

That day, HHS radically expanded the top vaccine priority group — 1A — which initially comprised only health care workers, to include everyone 65 and up and everyone 16 to 64 with compromising health conditions. Pennsylvania adopted that guidance, increasing its 1A contingent from 1 million to 4.5 million.

But the state didn’t follow the other aspect of the new federal policy announced that day: the release of second-dose reserves in expectation that manufacturers would have enough second doses available when it became time weeks later to vaccinate people who had received their first doses.

Accordingly, Pennsylvania is 47th — near the bottom — in the percentage of received doses that have been administered, at 50.4%, according to a database at Bloomberg.com, the Republicans point out.

The percentage of first-dose vaccines allocated by the state is 77%, Hutchinson said.

The state has allocated 930,000 doses for first shots. The percentage of Pennsylvania’s second-dose allocation is 20%, she reported. The state has allocated 884,000 doses for those second shots.

U.S. Rep. John Joyce, R-13th, joined the state-based Republicans in his criticism of the Department of Health.

“Pennsylvania remains far below the national average of total vaccine doses administered against total distribution levels,” his office said in a news release.

“I am disappointed by the alarming lack of vaccine access in rural communities,” the release states. “Individuals who are eligible to receive the vaccine under your administration’s distribution guidelines simply cannot find a dose.”

While the doses-administered statistics appear weak for Pennsylvania, the state is doing better in rankings based on vaccinations per capita. It ranks 35th in the number of first shots per 100,000 people, at 7,598, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 Data Tracker.

Pennsylvania ranks 21st in the number of second shots per 100,000 people, at 1,511.

The primary problem in the vaccine rollout remains a lack of doses, according to administration officials.

The state has received 1.8 million doses so far, but it’s getting only about 140,000 a week, a rate at which the state will take a long time getting the necessary 8 million shots administered for Phase 1A — two doses each for 4 million people, administration officials said this week. So far, Pennsylvania has administered a total of 893,000 shots.

Those shots have gone to 719,000 people — 546,000 of whom have received one dose, 173,000 of whom have received both of the required two shots, according to Hutchinson.

A federal partnership with CVS and Walgreens has administered a total of 161,000 shots at long-term care facilities, according to Hutchinson. About 98,000 people at those facilities have received one shot, while about 31,000 have received both.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.

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