Raleigh, North Carolina – The state has changed its vaccination policy for people from all state lines, saying vaccine providers should no longer offer coronavirus inoculations to people who do not live, work or spend “significant time” in Carolina of the North.
The move comes after a change in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guide last week, a guideline that top state health officials said they once required vaccinators who took all the people who arrived, as long as they complied with the vaccine eligibility plan by levels.
The state Department of Health and Human Services said 2.72 percent of the first 1.1 million first doses administered in North Carolina were for nonresidents. This works with just under 30,000 shots.
It is unclear how many people traveled to North Carolina just to get the vaccine, instead of working here or staying in the state long-term despite having a home address elsewhere. But there are some signs of “vaccine tourism,” with people crossing into North Carolina just to shoot themselves.
George Allen, the former governor of Virginia, traveled more than an hour from Virginia Beach, Virginia, to Elizabeth City last Friday to receive his shot. has tweeted about the trip, posting images on social media.
“Like many VA Beach residents, we find that NC is much easier to get the COVID vaccine,” he wrote. “My family is happy, relieved. Now I’m going to Popeye.”
Albemarle’s director of regional health services, R. Battle Betts, whose organization oversees public health in and around Elizabeth City, said ARHS initially featured about 2,000 people from outside the state for receive their shots, in part because North Carolina and Virginia had different eligibility requirements. .
“This has been corrected since then and should alleviate the problem,” Betts said in an email. “When it comes to demographics, I don’t think it was a wealth issue, as we had a wide variety of people present to serve all parts of VA.”
For weeks, North Carolina officials have said they could not take vaccine seekers out of the state because the vaccines are paid for and provided to each state by the federal government. But the CDC’s guidelines on this changed last week, and state officials confirmed Monday that North Carolina will change with them, though it appears the latest reasons are local health departments, hospitals and pharmacies offering shots. .
“It is permissible not to offer vaccine to temporary travelers who do not reside, work or spend significant time in North Carolina,” DHHS spokeswoman Sarah Lewis Peel said in an email. “This may include people who pass or travel briefly through North Carolina or who come to North Carolina with the primary goal of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine and then returning to another state.”
It was not immediately known whether other neighboring states would remain the same. The South Carolina and Tennessee health departments told WRAL News on Friday that they have no residency restrictions and Tennessee placed its out-of-state shooting rate in the same neighborhood as North Carolina, about 3 percent. one hundred.
The health departments of the other two states bordering North Carolina (Virginia and Georgia) did not immediately respond to questions, but the Georgia health commissioner has said publicly that the state is not trying to prevent the practice, despite who considers them to be “irresponsible and selfish” cross-border.
North Carolina heard of the CDC change early last week.
“A state may decide that the protection of the public health of its residents requires the limitation of vaccines to residents of the state and not to temporary travelers who do not reside in the state,” a link to the DHHS told CDC coronavirus team, in an email that was later sent to WRAL News. “This would be allowed in terms of CDC grants as long as the policy is intended to promote public health goals, such as reaching priority populations and promoting equity.”
Asked about the above policy, DHHS provided an email chain starting in January. Initially, a regional link with CDC said it corresponded to the states. But two days later, on Jan. 8, this became clear: “As a federally funded federal vaccine, jurisdictions should not place restrictions on administration to nonresidents, as long as those patients meet the eligibility criteria. current “.
Health experts say it makes sense to offer vaccinations through state and county lines in some cases. Even discussing the latest policy change, DHHS said that “all North Carolinians will benefit from as many eligible people as possible who get the vaccine as quickly as they can.” The department also said people who work in North Carolina or receive continuing health care here should continue to be vaccinated here if they want to.
Betts said he had no problem with border county Virginians coming to North Carolina to shoot them.
“You could certainly argue viable that border counties could serve each other without borders, as it tends to be a fairly mundane mix anyway,” he said. “The real problem was the people trying to come from Richmond and the north. I think that’s beyond anyone’s reasonable expectations.”