PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A day after a hearing where state senators grilled acting Pennsylvania Health Secretary Alison Beam, Democratic Sen. Maria Collett said there are still many questions about the state’s accountability and improvements to its policy on vaccine distribution.
When allocating vaccine doses across the state, the Health Department factors in population sizes, the number of people who are 65 and older, total COVID-19 cases, and total COVID-19 deaths. But Collett said distribution is uneven between rural and more populous counties.
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“Southeastern Pennsylvania has an incredibly large population. It’s a very densely populated area. And the amount of vaccine coming into our areas here, it is not representative,” said Collett, who represents parts of Montgomery and Bucks counties.
She said it doesn’t appear that the state is taking into account the number of health care workers and others who are currently eligible. People in that category are telling her they’re willing to wait in line or on a list, she noted, but with the way Pennsylvania is running vaccine distribution, they say they can’t even get on a list.
Others who are eligible are forced to sign up on dozens of different sites.
“We should be figuring out ways to make it easier,” she said. “We should be figuring out ways to streamline this process so there is one central website or phone number that you sign up for,” like how the state uses a centralized hub to register cars or voters.
Collett is also concerned about how much information is being shared online as people scramble to register for vaccinations. She’s worried about the 65-and-older population — who is currently eligible for the vaccine — falling for scams to give out their personal information online or over the phone.
“But yet here we are saying email and give your personal information and maybe you’ll end up on a list. This is a mixed message and it’s really difficult, so we do owe it to them to make it easier,” she added.
Lindsay Mauldin, state Health Department senior adviser, points the finger at the short supply from the federal government. During the hearing a day prior, Montgomery County state Sen. Bob Mensch said, “We have a real downstream mess. It’s not just the federal government.”
When asked why other states dealing with the same shortage are managing better than Pennsylvania, Mauldin repeatedly said they’re looking at ways to improve, but she failed to elaborate.
“We know that our federal partnership next week with our pharmacies — hopefully, the feds are going to start to provide those vaccines directly to those pharmacies,” Mauldin replied. “And so we know that we’ll have an additional supply coming out of that. And again, we’re working with our partners at the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and our partners at county government to help figure out how we might be able to make this distribution more effortless, more efficient and more equitable.”
Pennsylvania continues to rank near the bottom in the number of doses distributed compared to the amount actually administered.