MADISON, Wis. – Like after a long winter, change is in the air. Vaccinators say that much-talked-about light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer by the day.
“We see it. We feel it,” said Mo Kharbat, regional vice president of pharmacy services at SSM Health. “Thankfully, we’re seeing the number of COVID-positive cases decline. The overall mood around here is excitement.”
“It’s great. Everyone I think is breathing a sigh of relief,” said Doug Voegeli with Public Health Madison & Dane County. “We know we’re going to have supply.”
“We’ve been getting a portion, a fraction, of what we request on a weekly basis,” Kharbat said. “What we heard is — Wisconsin is getting anywhere from 80 to 90 to 100,000 doses a week — and this number could triple or even quadruple by the end of the month, and if it does, it means that every vaccinator in Wisconsin will get all of the doses they request.”
Kharbat said the health system is expecting a relatively bigger allotment next week, but still “nowhere near the amount of doses we can handle on a weekly basis.”
SSM Health has the ability to do 20,000 vaccine appointments a week at its 18 sites in the state. They could have mobile teams that would increase their capacity even more. But in the past weeks, they have been requesting 2,000 doses per site, receiving about 500 instead.
The president’s promise
In early March, President Joe Biden announced the country would have enough vaccine doses for every adult in the country by the end of May. On Thursday, he set May 1 as a target to have all Americans vaccine-eligible.
Even with supply, it will take time to vaccinate the two to three million Wisconsinites estimated to be in the Phase 1C group who become eligible for the vaccine March 29, before moving to the remaining adult population in Phase 2.
“We all know it’s not possible to vaccinate two million people all at the same time,” Kharbat said, adding that there are many people in earlier phases still waiting to get vaccinated. “It will take weeks.”
Vaccinators including SSM Health will determine how to sub-prioritize high-risk medical conditions, with suggestions from the State such as starting with older adults or those with multiple conditions.
Alliant Energy Center ramping up operations
“You’ve heard us say again and again: supply, supply, supply,” Voegeli said. “I think in two to three weeks, there’s not going to be a supply issue.”
At the Alliant Energy Center, PHMDC has already opened up all eight lanes at the New Holland Pavilion to vaccinate educators, planning to keep it that way as eligibility opens up in the coming weeks. Voegeli said they should be able to go from about 5,200 vaccinations a week to 7,000.
“It will be very similar, eventually, to testing, that we would have just a wide open vaccination center,” he said. “We’ll work with scheduling to make sure we’re not piling up like we were with testing.”
Voegeli said a number of expansion options have been on the table, including moving to a six day set-up, increasing to 12 hours a day, or even going 24/7, which would require a lot more staffing.
“It’s kind of a balancing act between vaccine supply and demand,” he said.
The Alliant Energy Center is also being considered for a potential FEMA vaccination site, which could mean up to 6,000 more vaccinations a day depending on the type of facility.
Vaccinators, experts eye summertime for getting everyone vaccinated
“When doses come into the state, they’re getting into arms relatively quickly. There’s a high efficiency level,” said Ajay Sethi, an associate professor of population health sciences at UW-Madison. “We might rank sort of number one as far as percent doses received and then administered.”
Sethi said according to the latest numbers, the university is vaccinating at just 7% of its true capacity, with pharmacy and nursing students ready to help out.
“The Nick gym is able to vaccinate up to 7,500 doses per week. Right now, they’re only doing about 1,000 doses a week,” he said. “I just don’t see the state lagging behind in options.”
Sethi has done the math on a number of scenarios for when everyone in the state could be vaccinated.
“We’re on a good sort of clip right now,” Sethi said. “If everything goes smoothly, in the summertime we can expect everyone vaccinated, but there are a lot of things to consider.”
Not taking into account possible shipping delays or people who don’t want the vaccine, he looked at how many doses may be given a day and what percentage of those doses are the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which as a one-shot vaccine, speeds up the timeline.
The unrealistic scenario of 100% of vaccines being Johnson & Johnson with 80,000 weekly vaccinations puts the state at completely vaccinated in April. Sethi’s most conservative guess is in mid-September. The real answer, though tough to predict, likely lies in the middle. Voegeli’s best guess was sometime in June, while Kharbat hoped for June or July.
“Really, between May and September, the state has the capacity and has shown to have the capacity to get everyone vaccinated,” Sethi said.
After Phase 1C comes Phase 2, which encompasses remaining adults and will start sometime in May, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
Voegeli said with more vaccine supply comes promise of brighter days.
“We are right there,” Voegeli said. “We are so close.”
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