You’ll need an appointment to get COVID vaccine in the Triangle. They’re filling up fast
Hospitals, doctors’ offices and most health departments are requiring seniors to make an appointment to get vaccinated against COVID-19, now that it’s their turn to get a shot.
But those appointments already are hard to come by in the Triangle.
UNC Health and Duke Health said Monday that all of their appointments for people 75 and older are full for the week. The Orange County Health Department’s two vaccination clinics on Thursday and Friday are also full.
Hospitals and health departments say they’re inoculating people by appointment only to avoid crowding or making people stand in line. They say demand for the vaccines far outstrips the supplies they’re receiving through the federal distribution process.
“We know it’s frustrating that appointments fill up quickly,” said Alan Wolf, spokesman for UNC Health. “But we’re going to keep posting them as they come available.”
UNC Health had a dozen vaccination sites across its statewide hospital network as of Monday afternoon and hopes to increase that to 14 this week, Wolf said. UNC has enough vaccine to inoculate about 10,000 seniors this week, he said, but supplies beyond that are uncertain.
Seniors age 75 and older are the first group in the general public to receive the coronavirus vaccine, also known as Phase 1b. The state’s phased system for inoculating people against the virus gave top priority to Phase 1a, or frontline health care workers at hospitals and residents and employees at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
Since mid-December, tens of thousands of people in the priority Phase 1a category have received their first dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. Hospital workers began receiving the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine last week.
The next phase, 1b, consists of three groups: People 75 and older; frontline health care workers and essential workers age 50 and older; and frontline health and essential workers of any age. Because of limited supplies of vaccine, only the seniors are eligible to get vaccinated now.
Health departments in Durham and Wake counties haven’t started offering 1b vaccinations or making appointments. Those hospitals and county health departments that are vaccinating seniors are taking different approaches.
Johnston County will eventually schedule appointments, but its first vaccinations in Phase 1b will begin at 10 a.m. Tuesday with a drive-thru clinic at West Johnston High School, where 500 shots will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis. County officials say they will hold other drive-thru events and begin taking appointments in the future.
Meanwhile, Orange County has started a waiting list for people it couldn’t accommodate at this week’s clinics, said spokesman Todd McGee. Those who don’t want a place on the list are being referred to UNC Health, where appointments fill up almost as soon as they are posted.
Hospitals are reaching out to their patients
Duke, WakeMed and UNC health systems say they and their affiliated physicians offices are reaching out to established patients who qualify through their “MyChart” online accounts, and are urging patients who don’t have an account to sign up for one. WakeMed is also providing vaccine to primary care practices in Wake County and urges patients to contact their providers to ask if they have any available.
WakeMed is working with several community health groups to vaccinate residents who live in the 27610 ZIP code in East Raleigh, around the hospital’s main campus. The organizations are reaching out to their patients to tell them how to make appointments for Sunday drive-thru clinics at WakeMed Raleigh Medical Park on Sunnybrook Road.
WakeMed gave out about 380 doses of vaccine during a trial run of its drive-thru clinic Sunday. The hospital system will receive its 1b allotment for the week on Tuesday or Wednesday and hopes to begin inoculations by Thursday, said spokeswoman Kristin Kelly. WakeMed is choosing candidates for vaccination “at random, by lottery” from its database of primary care patients, Kelly said.
Duke began vaccinating seniors last week and had reached 1,600 by day’s end Monday, with another 14,000 scheduled through the end of the month. Duke has another 1,500 people on a waiting list and is contacting them to work them in, according to Simon Curtis, vice president of Duke Private Diagnostic Clinic ambulatory services.
“We ask that people please be patient as we work to accommodate everyone who is eligible to receive the vaccine,” Curtis wrote in an email. “We are also coordinating with the state and other health systems to increase the number of vaccinations we can do as quickly and safely as possible to ensure that all those who are eligible for this round of vaccination are accommodated.”
UNC’s Wolf said non-UNC patients or those without a MyChart account can try to make an appointment for one of the health system’s vaccination clinics by going to www.yourshot.org. Instead of a waiting list, UNC is urging people who can’t get an appointment to keep trying back. Several vaccination events were added on Monday, and each quickly filled up.
Pace of vaccinations lags in North Carolina
North Carolina has received 820,825 doses of COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including both first and second doses.
As of 9 a.m. Monday, the CDC reported that 211,572 people in North Carolina had received the first dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. That was a rate of 2,017 per 100,000 residents, ranking 41st out of 50 states.
Wolf said UNC’s capacity to vaccinate 1b groups is limited by the availability of vaccine. He said between vaccinating its own employees and now seniors from the community, UNC is using every dose it receives.
“Nothing sitting on shelves. Nothing being wasted,” he said. “They’re trying to ramp it up as much as possible.”
But Wolf and others note that additional factors will begin to weigh on the ability of hospitals to vaccinate large numbers of people. Dr. Linda Butler, chief medical officer at UNC Rex hospital in Raleigh, said its vaccination clinics are being run by employees who have been reassigned or are volunteering at a time when hospitals are at capacity.
“Everybody who’s doing this right now, it is not their day job,” Butler said. “We can’t sustain this long-term. We’re going to have to come up with another strategy.”
For more information about eligibility for the COVID-19 vaccine and to find vaccination sites throughout North Carolina, go to the state Department of Health and Human Services website, covid19.ncdhhs.gov/findyourspot/ or call 877-490-6642.
This story was originally published January 11, 2021 at 5:08 PM with the headline "You’ll need an appointment to get COVID vaccine in the Triangle. They’re filling up fast."
