Beginning this week, all U.S. adults are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, but it seems as supply ramps up, demand is going down. Rosalie Danchanko, Executive Director of Highlands Health Clinic saying: “We have the supplies, we need the arms to put the vaccine into, that’s what’s going slow right now. We had a clinic last week that we could of done 1,100 and only 300 signed up.”
As a result, Rosalie Danchanko says they’re changing the way they distribute vaccines. Rosalie adding: “Instead of expecting having large 1,000 people clinics, we are shifting to small areas in hoping to provide 100, 200 to 300 people clinics or we are looking to go into a small business and provide the vaccine there. So, we are shifting the way we are offering the vaccines to individuals, it’s taking the show on the roads.”
Mainline Pharmacy is seeing a similar issue. Director of Pharmacy, John Pastorek believes it could be from vaccine hesitancy, especially following the pause of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine last week. Pastorek adding: “I don’t know if anyone realized how many people were hesitant to get this vaccine, it seems like almost half the people in this area are just not interested in getting it.” And Danchanko agrees, adding: “It’s probably part of the problem, the vaccine hesitancy. A lot of the problem is just people taking the initiative to register to come out.”
Pastorek assures people severe side effects from the vaccine are very rare. Plus, this vaccine, is the way to put this pandemic behind us. Pastorek saying: “We’ve given over 90,000 of these now but people have reactions or are sick for a couple of days and the arm swells up a little bit, rashes, but that’s the worst we’ve seen we haven’t had any severe reactions and to give 90,000 vaccines and have that clean or a record we’ve seen it firsthand there just is not that many problems with it. And I don’t see how this pandemic is going to end unless we get more people vaccinated.”
