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When I became Governor we were delivering about 5,000 vaccines each day. Yesterday we did 15,000. A quick thread on how we got here and where are headed. (But the short answer is that our local health departments have stepped up in a big way). 1/
That first week we made some critical changes. The 3 most important: 1) Vaccine must be used within 7 days; 2) 70+ eligibility; and 3) Local Health Depts lead. 2/ https://twitter.com/spencerjcox/status/1347669846587109376?s=10
By focusing on 1st doses and redistributing doses that were sitting on shelves for more than one week, we hoped to significantly increase vaccinations. Well, in just 15 days we have burned through those unused stockpiles! (with one exception...more on that in just a second). 3/
Now, we knew that this change would be bumpy and quickly overwhelming our LHD’s. This was not an unintended consequence, but a conscious decision that crashing servers and long scheduling lines would be a better short-term problem than 70,000 extra doses sitting on shelves... 4/
And so I tasked LG @DeidreHenderson and Director Saunders to visit all 13 LHD’s and give them every support necessary to solve these problems. They have completed that task and every day we are providing new resources: Upgrading servers, call centers, data entry and nurses. 5/
Things are not yet perfect, but every day is improving. Most importantly though, life-saving vaccines are in arms. Great example: one week ago Utah County had 5,000 doses older than 7 days. With help from the National Guard and others, today they have 0. 6/
But as you can see, there is one group that still has 1000’s of doses older than 7 days. The fed govt contracted with CVS and Walgreens to provide vaccinations to our long-term care facilities. They have done a great job and almost finished, but received FAR too much vaccine. 7/
While we don’t have control of those contracts, we are working with them to get back most of those extra doses in the next few days to give to our LHD’s. We have also stopped additional shipments from the federal government that will now come directly to the state. 8/
Please note than none of these doses have been wasted or expired like in some other states. We just need them so we can schedule more shots for our 70+ crowd. But what about all those 2nd doses? Every 2nd dose is assigned to someone that got a first dose. But... 9/
If people don’t show up within 7 days of their scheduled 2nd dose, we will release it to be a 1st dose. That DOES NOT mean you will lose your 2nd dose! We will always have a it for you (and you should get it). It just means we won’t be wasting 2nd doses that aren’t used. 10/
Finally, all of this means we just need more vaccine supply! We are currently receiving 33,000 1st doses each week...and we just delivered 50,000 doses in 4 days. We need more and we will be ready. We are lucky to have so many dedicated professionals making it happen.
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