Credit: Mackenzie Walsh
County officials and state legislators from the region spoke with Pennsylvania Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam and other top state officials Sunday to discuss the amount of COVID-19 vaccine doses provided to Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties.
The virutal meeting took place after an analysis by the Philadelphia Inquirer found Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties were receiving less doses of vaccine per capita than many smaller and more rural counties. Bucks County, which is the fourth largest by population, ranked 34 out of 66 counties in the state in doses received per population. The 67th county, Philadelphia, receives its vaccinates separate from the rest of the state due to its size.
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Bucks County and the other Philadelphia collar counties “consistently have received from the Pennsylvania Department of Health far smaller amounts of vaccine than requested, while less-populated counties elsewhere in the state have received disproportionately large amounts of Pfizer and Moderna vaccine,” the counties’ statement to reporters said.
Due to the smaller-than-requested amount of vaccine doses received, some people in Bucks County have had their second doses of vaccines cancelled or delayed in recent weeks, officials confirmed.
An exact number of people whose second dose vaccination appointments have been cancelled or rescheduled in Bucks County was not immediately available.
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“Smaller-than-expected allocations in our area have led to long waiting lists and cancellation of second-dose appointments that had been scheduled for weeks, creating understandable frustration and anger among our constituents. Sunday’s discussion, conducted via Zoom, came after repeated requests from county officials and state legislators for a meeting to explain and remedy these evident inequalities,” the Bucks County Commissioners’ said.
Officials who were on the call told LevittownNow.com the state’s top health officials went through a list of talking points on vaccine distribution and affirmed that the COVID-19 vaccine supply for the region was being distributed properly.
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The call included state officials assuring local elected officials that the vaccination rate in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties was satisfactory and even exceeded the statewide average.
Two people on the call said local officials did not seem to be satisfied with many answers provided and had several questions that were not answered during the call that lasted a little more than an hour.
A chart provided to the officials on the call by the Pennsylvania Department of Health outlined the COVID-19 vaccine distribution flow. It shows the vaccines coming from the federal government to the state, qualified health centers, and retail pharmacies and then the vaccine doses trickle down to the arms of Pennsylvanians through medical providers, long-term care centers, and government health agencies.
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Below is the joint statement from a leaders of the four counties:
The meeting with the PA Department of Health was both disappointing and frustrating.
There remains a lack of transparency on the total doses that have come to our counties from every source. Therefore, we have no way to assess how the data presented to us today was calculated, and how those calculations have been used to determine the number of doses that have been allocated to our four counties. Additionally, we were not given any indication of the plan to make up acknowledged shortfalls to certain counties going forward.
Acting Secretary Beam did confirm that no county will move to vaccinate people in Phase 1B before sufficient vaccine has been made available to all counties to fully vaccinate residents in Phase 1A who wish to be vaccinated – with the exception of teachers and educational support personnel who are directly receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine from the State.
Together we call on Acting Secretary Beam to swiftly do the following:
1. Create a publicly available chart showing the amount of vaccine from all sources, including Federal partnerships, that has been delivered to each county each month; a description of the “County Index” that PA Department of Health is currently using to allocate doses to each county; and how the Index has been applied to each County since it came into use in January.
2. Explain how and when counties that are lagging in vaccine delivery will receive additional vaccine.
3. Explain how vaccine providers will be monitored going forward to ensure that no vaccine provider moves on to vaccinate 1B individuals (beyond the teachers and educational support personnel noted above) until all counties in the Commonwealth have received sufficient vaccine to vaccinate their 1A population.
Members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Republican delegation from the four-county area called for the Pennsylvania National Guard to take over distribution and allocation of COVID-19 vaccines.
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“There are people throughout Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware and Chester counties who should have already been vaccinated if the administration had followed an equitable distribution formula,” said State Rep. Frank Farry, a Republican from Langhorne Borough. “The planning of this distribution has lacked transparency; it’s been a disaster. The National Guard specializes in logistics, and that’s how we fix this moving forward.”
Farry said he was dissatisfied with the information provided by the state and state officials lacked background data.
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State Rep. Tina Davis, a Democrat from Bristol Township, said she was “frustrated and angry” by the discussion.
“I was thankful to Secretary Beam and other officials from the Wolf Administration for taking the time to have a conference call with myself and other state and county officials from Southeast Pennsylvania. However, I am extremely disappointed, frustrated, and angry at the non-answers to our questions regarding a plan to get more vaccines to Bucks County residents or the inequitable way that the vaccine supply has been distributed so far,” Davis said. “The complete lack of transparency in this process has been alarming and unacceptable. I believe this call was set up in an attempt to placate us but all that it did was raise more questions and strengthen our resolve. I will continue to work with both Democratic and Republican Colleagues to hound administration officials and do whatever is necessary to get this right. There are lives at stake here.”
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State Rep. John Galloway, a Democrat from Falls Township, did not wish to comment on the call.
Bucks County has seen 41,451 people partially vaccinated and 41,733 fully vaccinated as of Monday, totaling 73,184, according to state data. Bucks County has a population just over 628,200.
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