No vaccine sent to small health departments in NC as Charlotte hosts big events
At least two nearby county health departments will not receive any first doses of COVID-19 vaccines from the state this week — even as health leaders gear up to offer thousands of shots in Charlotte at the Panthers’ Bank of America Stadium.
Both Lincoln and Gaston counties will not receive additional doses for patients getting their first shot. Area hospital providers may still receive doses to administer. And Lincoln County Public Health Department has suspended scheduling new vaccine appointments due to the low supply, officials announced Monday.
“The arrival of the COVID-19 vaccine to our county has been both a blessing and a challenge,” Lincoln County Health Director Davin Madden said in a statement Tuesday.
Though Gaston County Public Health, too, will receive no new doses of the vaccine, Gaston has not announced plans to suspend new vaccine appointments. Gaston will work with local partners at Gaston County hospitals to provide vaccines to residents at the county’s weekly vaccine clinic, spokesman Adam Gaub told the Observer Monday.
Gaston has been following instructions from the state to utilize all the vaccine they had, in order to receive more from the state, Gaub said.
The county expects to use up its current supply of COVID-19 vaccines Tuesday, he said. But Gaston County leaders are pushing the state to reconsider the decision to not send more this week, Gaub said.
Where can you get the COVID-19 vaccine near Charlotte? Here are current options.
The state’s supply of COVID-19 vaccines has dramatically decreased, NC Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen said in a news conference Tuesday.
And this coming week, many vaccines have already been committed to mass vaccination events like the one in Charlotte at the Bank of America Stadium. Those events were planned weeks ago, when the state was dealing with a backlog of vaccines, Cohen said Tuesday.
“This week is going to feel particularly tight, with many providers getting small or no allocations,” Cohen said.
But starting this week, North Carolina will implement a new vaccine plan, giving providers a baseline amount of doses that they can expect for the next three weeks. Before this, providers didn’t know how many vaccines they would receive week-to-week until a few days before each shipment.
“We are encouraged by new information the state has shared with us this week that will allow us to better plan for future events and give us a set weekly allocation for the next three weeks,” Gaston Public Health Director Steve Eaton said in a statement Tuesday. “We will do everything we can to vaccinate as many Gaston County residents as quickly as possible.”
Based on state data updated Jan. 21, nearly 31,000 people in Mecklenburg County have received the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine. Close to 7,500 patients in Mecklenburg have had a second dose.
In Gaston County, nearly 7,600 people have had the first dose and less than 2,000 have had the second. In Lincoln, according to DHHS, around 2,700 people have been given a first dose and less than 500 have had the second.
Charlotte getting more vaccines
Across the state, local health departments have pushed back as the state redistributed vaccines to accommodate mass vaccination events like Atrium Health’s event this weekend at Bank of America Stadium.
Atrium expects to receive roughly 35,000 vaccines from the state this week, according to the hospital system.
That’s nearly 30% of the 120,000 vaccines the state says it has to distribute across the state.
“A large portion of those doses are committed to the large-scale events planned several weeks ago to address the backlog in vaccine,” NC DHHS said in a statement Monday. “As a result, many providers are getting small or no allocations for the coming week. Through no fault of their own, they will be postponing appointments.”
In a letter to Cohen, the North Carolina Association of Local Health Directors called for more transparency in distributing the coronavirus vaccines.
“NC DHHS decided to move vaccine AWAY from local communities where, in many cases, travel to a large mega site is prohibitive to access for many North Carolinians creating inequitable distribution of this limited resource,” the letter reads.
