Despite vaccine reduction, health officials remain optimistic weekly dose allotment will soon return to former amount

DeKALB – Weeks after health officials announced DeKalb County Health Department would see a 75% reduction in first dose COVID-19 vaccine allotments, DeKalb County health officials say supply from the state is on track to return to former levels.

Lisa Gonzalez, public health administrator for the DeKalb County Health Department, said during a DeKalb County health and human services meeting on Monday the state was giving less first doses to county health departments to catch up with second dose appointments. Even though the number of first doses went from 1,200 to 300 weeks ago, she said, the county received 700 first doses the following week and 1,000 first doses the week thereafter.

“It was really a game of making sure that the state had enough to be able to catch all those people who got it four weeks ago in order to be able to give them their second dose,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said local officials were told they should expect to see the number of available first doses continue to increase throughout this month.

“Especially with the recent approval of the Johnson & Johnson one dose vaccine,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said details for the rollout of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine remain underway, but said it could be a few more weeks before DeKalb County could see that third vaccine in the mix. Health officials haven’t yet announced distribution plans for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

“As far as who it’s going to, that’s still unclear,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said she expects that to be part of the county’s vaccine strategy, to get Johnson & Johnson vaccine allotments. If and when the health department receives it, the public will be notified of availability for the single-dose vaccine.

“Any way that we can approve vaccine availability locally, we are open to that,” Gonzalez said. “If that is offered to us, we will be sure to take that.”

Allotment levels

Gonzalez said the county has been in high gear with COVID-19 vaccinations since the last week of December, when the county first got its initial shipment. At this point, she said, county health officials still are vaccinating only those who live or work in DeKalb County. (Other vaccine distributors, including pharmacies which receive separate shipments from the health department, do not require such stipulations.)

“That obviously can change moving forward,” Gonzalez said. “But, given the limited number of vaccines that we have, we are only vaccinating those who can verify that they live or work in the county.”

Gonzalez said the state determines the allocations it gives to which areas primarily by population. She said she receives regular surveys from the state asking how many first doses and second doses DeKalb County needs.

“And I’m given the number in which I can ask for,” Gonzalez said.

‘There’s been a lot of inconsistency’

The process isn’t without its hiccups, though.

Gonzalez said the state sends the survey to county health staff on different days of the week each week, so she never knows when she’s going to get it.

“There’s been a lot of inconsistency in the shipping timeline as well,” Gonzalez said.

Like much of the state and country, DeKalb County’s local COVID-19 vaccine demand remains much higher than vaccination capabilities allow so far – though the county has been successful in getting second dose vaccines in within the 42 day range from the first dose being administered, Gonzalez said.

As a result of the demand, she said, the county still has not opened vaccine appointments to all of group 1B completely, but staff recently extended it to public transit workers, shelter workers, U.S. Postal Service workers and veterinarian clinic workers.

Until vaccine supply increases and more 1B individuals are completely vaccinated, Gonzalez said, vaccines will not be open to those who fall in the 1B+ group.

“So we’re getting a lot of calls from this group as well,” Gonzalez said.

Illness mitigation more than just vaccine

When asked if the vaccine allocation decrease may present greater risk to county health down the line, Gonzalez said she thinks the greater risk is people relaxing on the more holistic approach of mitigating the spread of the illness.

“It can’t just be the vaccine,” Gonzalez said. “It also needs to be testing, it needs to be contact tracing and case investigation. So you have to be doing all of those things together in order to try to prevent other additional outbreaks from happening.”

Gonzalez said concern that the virus could still spread remains, as the county is only just starting to get vaccines out to the community and only certain groups are able to get it so far.

“If people maybe are not testing – even when they may have symptoms – because they think, ‘Oh, the vaccine is coming, I’ll just wait,’ we could be in a position especially with the variant to be dealing with other surges in cases,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said the health department still urges people to register for notifications about vaccine availability by group if they haven’t already done so, either online at https://health.dekalbcounty.org/about/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccination/ or over the phone at (815) 758-6673. Direct links to register will be sent to those who have signed up for those e-mail notifications.

Though the county is moving along with vaccinating those who work and live locally, Gonzalez said, there are still those remaining in the large Phase 1B who need vaccine, including workers in manufacturing, agriculture and grocery stores.

“We’re asking for people to be patient as we work through those groups,” Gonzalez said.