Vaccine rollout an exercise in frustration

More people became eligible to receive Covid-19 vaccinations this week but many Ozaukee County residents quickly discovereed that doesn’t mean much as they scramble in vain to find shots.

They turned to health care providers and pharmacies only to be told those organizations had no vaccine and no information about when it would be available. Limited reservations to receive shots from the Washington Ozaukee Public Health Department filled up almost instantly.

Even many residents of Ozaukee County’s Lasata Care Center Campus, which has contracted with CVS Pharmacy to provide vaccinations, are having trouble scheduling shots, Lasata Aministrator Amanda Kohal told the county Health and Human Services Committee Tuesday.

“It’s kind of a mess,” she said.

While the initial rollout this month of the vaccine for the so-called 1A group — mostly law enforcement, first responders and frontline health care workers — appeared to go smoothly, distribution problems became more acute this week when vaccination began of the much larger 1B group — those 65 and older, teachers and essential workers, including grocery store workers and other food preparers. 

The state has allotted 70,000 doses a week of vaccine statewide, distributed through hospitals, CVS and Walgreens pharmacies or through counties.

Washington Ozaukee Public Health Department officials are requesting 1,300 doses per week and expect to receive about 1,200, officials say.

County health officials do not know how many doses are being offered through hospitals and pharmacies and the state Department of Health Services is not making available county-by-county distribution numbers.

The 70,000 weekly doses are “not expected to go up anytime soon,” Nitish Bangalore, director of pharmacy at Holy Family Memorial Hospital in Manitowoc and a member of the Health and Human Services Committee, told other committee members Tuesday. 

“The eligible population will go up significantly, but the supply will not,” he said.

The county-owned Lasata Senior Living Campus in Cedarburg is a microcosm of what’s happening, officials said. 

The first wave of vaccinations, delivered by CVS, of frontline health-care workers at Lasata occurred on Jan. 4, with the second vaccination of the two-step inoculation process scheduled for Feb. 1, Kohal told the committee.

More than 100 staff and more than 80 skilled-nursing residents have been vaccinated so far, Kohal said.

First in line among the 1B group are people 65 years or older. They began receiving vaccinations on Monday.

On Tuesday, the state announced that others in 1B will begin getting vaccinated on March 1. They include those in education and child care and “public-facing essential workers” such as food workers, farmers and those involved in agriculture, non-frontline health care workers and residents in congregate living settings.

There are nearly 150 Lasata residents in skilled nursing and independent and assisted living who are in the 1B group, “struggling” to schedule their vaccinations because CVS, on whom Lasata is dependent to get the vaccine, says it doesn’t have enough for them. 

Kohal called the situation frustrating.

“We can’t just order the vaccine and administer it ourselves. It has to be done by an approved vaccinator,” in this case CVS, Kohal said.

“There’s some confusion there,” Kohal said. “CVS informed me there are multiple facilities with this issue.”

There’s no assurance of when they will be vaccinated because of the uncertainty of vaccine deliveries.

“This seems like a group that deserves high priority,” Supr. Alice Read said.

About 15 residents have declined to take the vaccine, either personally or through someone who holds power of attorney, because of worries about the vaccine’s safety, Kohal said.

According to the health department, people seeking to be vaccinated should begin with their primary health care provider, their pharmacy or the health department.

On Sunday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranked Wisconsin seventh slowest among the states at getting the vaccine out, with about 5.3% vaccinated, up from fifth the previous week.

Health and Human Services Committee Chairman Kathy Geracie on Tuesday said about 8% of Ozaukee County residents have been vaccinated so far.

Committee members noted that many people are signing up on a number of waiting lists and then when those people get the vaccine, fail to remove their name from the other lists, adding to the confusion.

Issues with obtaining the vaccine come as six people at Lasata are currently in isolation because  they tested positive for Covid-19, Kohal said.

It’s the largest outbreak the facility has experienced since the beginning of the pandemic a year ago, Kohal said.

Lasata has 92 residents in its skilled-nursing facility.

In that year, Lasata has been relatively unscathed by the virus compared to other facilities, with  57 staff members and 27 residents testing positive over that period, she said.

As a result of the latest outbreak, the facility has intensified its procedures it already had in place, including wearing N95 masks, which are replaced after five uses and sent to the county’s Emergency Management office for decontamination, wearing face shields, gloves and gowns, which they are required to change as they go from resident to resident, and deep cleaning, Kohal told committee members.

Lasata is one of the few facilities in the county with negative pressure areas that limit air circulation to combat the potential spread of the virus and people who come into the facility from the outside, such as residents returning from rehab or hospitalization, are quarantined for 14 days, she added.

The number of Covid-19 cases in Ozaukee County continued on a downward trend this week, with 263 active cases on Tuesday, according to the health department website.

That’s half of the number recorded on Jan. 13 and down from 1,300 in late November. 

Meanwhile, staffing continues to be a struggle at Lasata because of Covid since  staff members who show symptoms of the disease are restricted from working for 10 to 14 days even if they haven’t tested positive, Kohal said.

But a recent county decision to raise wages for nursing assistants and other staff members is already paying dividends, Kohal said.

“We had one of our largest orientations” for new employees recently with six people in attendance. There has also been an increase in the number of referrals of people from other facilities, Kohal said.

“We’re also seeing higher-quality resumes,” she said.

Officials with the Washington Ozaukee Health Department did not return a phone call seeking comment.

For more information, visit the Wisconsin Department of Health Services website at www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/covid-19/vaccine or the Washington Ozaukee Public Health Department website at www.washozwi.gov.