Earlier this month, people arrived at pharmacies for their regular COVID-19 shots but were turned away because they didn’t have prescriptions.
Cases of COVID-19 were beginning to rise across the state, just as kids were going back to school and people were gathering indoors.
Last year at the same time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had already approved the most recent vaccine update for people six months and older. The Food and Drug Administration made the same recommendations, and the latest vaccine was available to anyone at a pharmacy.
But West Virginia pharmacists wait for recommendations from the CDC for guidance on how they can distribute vaccines, and this year it didn’t come until last week. So pharmacists were requiring prescriptions from doctors.
Nursing homes experienced outbreaks in Berkeley, Harrison, Raleigh, Mason, Preston, Taylor, Wyoming, Grant and Fayette counties during the first two weeks of September, according to the West Virginia Department of Health, and in Kanawha County last week, according to the local health department.
As three nursing home outbreaks were ongoing in Kanawha County, the health department ordered its own shots, so doctors on site could prescribe them to patients.
They ran out in days due to unprecedented demand, according to Kanawha County Public Health Officer Dr. Steven Eshenaur.
“I strongly encourage individual patients with concerns to consult with their provider about what is best for them and to try to keep the politics out of it and keep the medicine in it, because health is not partisan,” he said. “Health is human.”
Meanwhile, the Infectious Diseases Society of America was warning that the delay and confusion meant fewer people would be vaccinated, setting up the country for more hospitalization and death.
The organization’s experts are now saying the entire country is experiencing a COVID-19 wave.
Vaccine approval delayed as Kennedy fires panel members
This year, in June, sweeping personnel changes were underway at the CDC under new Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He removed all members of a CDC immunization committee and didn’t finalize reappointments until earlier this month.
The new committee members have been criticized for lack of relevant experience or understanding about the science of vaccines.
During a media briefing Tuesday, doctors from the Infectious Diseases Society of America said Kennedy had chosen members who cherry-picked unreliable studies rather than focusing on the body of research showing vaccines are safe.
“Ultimately, what these proceedings created was a sense of chaos and a sense of lack of confidence and access to vaccines that are safe and prevent disease for the American people,” said Dr. Helen Chu, a former member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices who was removed in June. Chu is a professor who studies respiratory viruses and vaccines at the University of Washington School of Public Health.
Former leaders of the CDC have said they resigned or were fired under pressure from Kennedy to pre-approve vaccine recommendations, censor CDC science and politicize their processes.
An HHS press secretary didn’t respond to a question about why the guidance wasn’t issued sooner.
“The COVID vaccine remains available for anyone who chooses it in consultation with their healthcare provider,” said Emily Hilliard, HHS press secretary.
Without the recommendations, Krista Capehart, director of professional and regulatory affairs for the West Virginia Board of Pharmacy, said about 500 patients and pharmacists have called her office because people didn’t have health care providers who could write them prescriptions.
Meanwhile, some pharmacists had ordered vaccines but couldn’t dispense them, so they sat at pharmacies unused.
Vaccine availability set to expand
The committee met Friday and voted to recommend that pharmacists no longer require prescriptions. So West Virginians should be able to get the vaccine at pharmacies without them soon. Anyone over six months can get the vaccine. But the recommendations are different from years past.
They emphasize “individual decision-making” — that people should consult with a provider, such as a doctor, nurse or pharmacist, about the risks.
But for now, prescriptions are still required until CDC Acting Director Jim O’Neill signs off on the recommendations.
In a news release Friday, O’Neill did express his support for the new guidance.
Health insurers including Medicaid will cover the cost of the shot.
Capehart, of the Board of Pharmacy, said the recommendation may not hinder people from getting the shot moving forward.
But she noted some people travel long distances to pharmacies.
Some people who tried to get a shot earlier this month may not try again.
“But for those who are unsure whether they want it, it’s an opportunity to become more educated,” Capehart said.
What do doctors say?
Dr. Peter Wentzel, medical director at Preston-Taylor Community Health Centers, said he continues to recommend the rigorously-studied and safe vaccine to patients, although he noted a few have allergies and there are some rare complications.
“If you look at the data, it’s pretty clear that the risk of the vaccine is significantly lower than the risk of getting measles or COVID or flu,” he said.
He noted there isn’t debate about vaccine safety among health care advocacy groups.
The American Academy of Pediatrics continues to recommend the vaccine for healthy children six months and up, and according to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the vaccine is safe during pregnancy.
Wentzel said he sees the committee’s “individual decision-making” specification as political “hedging.”
“Instead of saying ‘hey, we think these vaccines are safe, and you should go and get one,’ they’re creating one more level of confusion, just to make it a little bit more challenging to get the vaccine,” he said.
And he said the more people there are who get the vaccine, the less likely it is to spread to vulnerable people, especially from health care workers to patients and at schools and other group settings.
Dr. Terrence Reidy, health officer at the Jefferson County Health Department, said he respects people’s right to make their own decisions.
He noted vaccines work by targeting newer strains.
Those newer strains are less likely to be deadly, but he also said he advises people more at risk of serious illness, such as older people with respiratory problems, to get the shot.
Reidy personally plans to get the updated vaccine. He said he’s tolerated it well in the past, and he’s 71.
He said, “I think people should talk with their practitioner and not get advice on health matters from someone that really doesn’t know much about them, just like I go to my mechanic if I need advice about my vehicle.”