RALEIGH, NC (AP) – North Carolina’s top public health official said Tuesday that most nursing home workers are refusing to take the coronavirus vaccines offered in a state that now it has become one of the slowest in the nation to get doses in people’s arms.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, attributed some of the slowness behind the deployment to the lack of staff, the lack of familiarity with the systems. state technology and logistical barriers to working with dozens of hospitals and 100 different counties across the state.
His comments came shortly after the governor announced on Tuesday the deployment of members of the National Guard to speed up dose administration.
“We have a decentralized system in North Carolina,” Cohen said. “We have 83 local public health departments, we have 100 counties. We’re very proud of it, but when you decentralize things, that creates slowness. We try to find the right balance to recognize the strengths of our local areas, but also to recognize where the challenges are.
Roy Cooper, the newly re-elected Democratic governor of North Carolina, wrote on Twitter that ensuring that vaccines are given to people “is our top priority right now.”
“We will use all the necessary resources and staff,” Cooper wrote. “I have mobilized the NC National Guard to support local health care providers as we continue to increase the pace of vaccinations.”
The North Carolina National Guard said in a statement that it mobilized approximately 50 troops to support anticipated lawsuits from state partners and county health departments. The Guard will be operational this week, according to the press release.
Nearly 110,000 people in North Carolina had received the first dose as of Tuesday morning, according to state health department data. About 500 people had received a second dose.
The administration of initial doses so far represents less than 1% of the state population of 10.5 million people. Data collected and shared by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday it ranked North Carolina as the sixth worst state in the country in first-person vaccines in per capita doses. Kansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and Arizona ranked worst.
Cohen noted that the vaccination of the vaccine among long-term care personnel is “worrying,” given the anecdotal reports the state has gathered so far. North Carolina works with Walgreens and CVS, which are responsible for vaccinating residents and workers in long-term care settings, to access and report specific data. She believes North Carolina is experiencing something similar to an estimate that Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine made last week and noted that about 60 percent of staff in long-term care settings are has refused to be vaccinated.
“I warn you it’s anecdotal, but we’re definitely feeling that more than half (the vaccine) is declining, and that’s worrisome,” Cohen said.
According to the state’s COVID board, as of Monday about 166,000 doses of vaccine were allocated to long-term care centers in the state. Of these, 13,338 doses had been administered.
Still, statewide demand far exceeds the available weekly supply of 120,000 doses that North Carolina hopes to obtain this month from President Donald Trump’s administration.
Cohen said some of the National Guard members will serve as vaccinators, while others will help local health departments with logistical processes of registering people at the sites and making sure they are masked and physically distant from each other.
Hospital workers were the first to receive doses in line and some remain unvaccinated due to limited supply. Starting Wednesday, a small number of counties will begin administering doses to people age 75 and older.
The high level of demand has raised concerns about equity and fairness, especially because some local health departments are asking residents to make an online appointment. Appointments can fill up quickly and people with fewer digital skills or living in rural communities without broadband access can be left behind.
“We continue to have structural inequalities in our system that end up being integrated into the way we operate as a government (and) into the way we operate as a medical system,” Cohen said. “There are people who have access to it and who don’t. I think we need to recognize that and then build systems that can try to overcome it. “
While North Carolina health officials have been slow to put doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in the arms of residents, there are similar problems in other states.
Federal health officials failed to reach the goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans by the end of December. The CDC said More than 17 million doses were distributed on Tuesday and 4.8 million people had received a first dose.
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Anderson is a member of the body of the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a national nonprofit services program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on covert issues.