By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – As anxious residents wait for their turn at a limited supply of COVID-19 vaccine, Gov. Chris Sununu visited a Londonderry vaccination site Tuesday to see how it was operating and then held a press briefing in Concord to go over the latest information.
The briefing came with good news – the number of new cases is going down, deaths are slowing as are hospitalizations and there were no new outbreaks this week at long-term care facilities while people are moving in droves to apply to get the vaccine.
Tuesday was the first official day for those age 65 and older and a few others to receive their first dose of the vaccine. About 325,000 of the state’s residents are in that category, known as Phase 1B.
Last Friday, residents 65 and older began to register for an appointment and by Tuesday, 130,000 had an appointment.
Dr. Beth Daly, chief of the Bureau of Infectious Disease Control, said there have been 125,000 vaccine doses distributed and 98,000 administered (83,000 first doses and 15,000-second doses.)
This week, the state received 17,575 doses as expected and the hope is that next week and the weeks to come the number will increase.
There have been 200,000 residents who have registered for a phase 1B vaccine appointment, the majority of which came through on the first day. Additionally, more than 50,000 medically vulnerable have been registered through their doctor and might not yet know that, Sununu said.
Appointments are booked through February, however, at 22 sites. While new sites are opening in the North Country, this does not reflect added doses, just more convenient locations, officials said.
Sununu Visits Londonderry
Sununu said he visited Londonderry’s vaccination site and “it was phenomenal,” adding he is pleased with the initial rollout of the Phase 1B group. Members of the National Guard and firefighters were working to get people quickly vaccinated and while there was a bit of a line, “it really moved,” Sununu said.
He thanked partners, volunteers, and residents who were helping others with the process but said if the first day is any indication, it will become even smoother and ramp up as more vaccine become available. It is possible the state will receive as early as next week a bump in the number of Moderna vaccines, which would add to the volume by about 16 percent.
Sununu said the system is designed conservatively and with more vaccine, more appointments can be made and or appointments moved up.
He urged anyone who had not received a reply to finalize an appointment to reach out by calling 2-1-1.
“Doctors may have already deemed you to be medically vulnerable and you might not already know it,” Sununu said.
Some people thought the email was spam when it was not. He urged all to check their spam files, too, to make sure that email didn’t get lost there.
Perspective
While some found shopping around to various locations to get the shot got them an appointment sooner, others were concerned that the state gave confusing information to primary care physicians and local hospitals who assumed they would be getting some of the vaccines only to find out that they needed to all go to the state website at https://www.vaccines.nh.gov/ or call 2-1-1 to get scheduling help.
Then, those who did get the vaccines found out they would have to go through the process again for getting a second booster shot four weeks after, only to find that they were going to have to wait closer to six weeks. The rollout also seems to favor those who are savvy with the computer over those who picked up the phone.
Second Vaccine Worries
Two Upper Valley residents aged 65 and over jumped right on their computers last Friday just before 8 a.m. when the Phase 1B vaccine registration began and had some immediate luck getting some of the first vaccinations as part of Phase 1B this weekend.
While Charlie Perkins said he and his wife were able to get some of the first vaccination Saturday in Claremont at an alternative location and time to the first selected in Lebanon, they found a bit of a surprise when scheduling the second booster shot.
They were not able to schedule a second booster within the four weeks recommended by the manufacturer Moderna. Instead, they have an appointment five and a half weeks out, which is still within the six weeks now considered OK by the CDC.
And although they were told at the vaccine site to expect an email in a few days to schedule the second one, the email came a few hours later.
“While we’ll be OK, I worry about those who got a shot yesterday but didn’t respond immediately to last night’s unexpected scheduling email,” Perkins said. “Will they be able to get Shot No. 2 within six weeks? Why didn’t the state let us schedule the two shots like a pair of appointments four weeks apart? Does New Hampshire have enough vaccine in hand to give timely second shots to everyone who’s scheduled for a first?”
At the press conference, Sununu said it might not be exactly at the 21-day mark or 28-day mark, but it should be alright to go a few weeks out.
‘A Real Mess’
In the North Country, the rollout has been “a real mess up,” said Easton resident Susan Schibanoff, who said many in the Woodsville and Littleton area must re-do their appointments after finding out through social media that the locations for getting the vaccine don’t really exist or are just not open to the public.
Schibanoff asked why the state out-sourced information to the CDC that was inaccurate that there were “phantom venues” and appointments were made in error.
In a Facebook post, Schibanoff said she worried about the people who still have not received word from Littleton Regional Hospital or Cottage Hospital that they have an appointment at an open vaccine pod which is not open to the public.
Perry Plummer, the state’s leader on vaccine distribution, said at the news conference there was an internal error and all those affected have been notified and given a new appointment.
A similar same sort of error occurred in the Berlin area, Plummer conceded, when local outreach involved people who were encouraged to sign up for an appointment under Phase 1B but were not able to qualify for this phase. The state’s Joint Information Center sent them an explainer, he said.
Today’s Numbers
The state’s COVID-19 numbers have dropped considerably, bringing hope to a state weary of the statistics. While there were four new deaths to report for a total of 994, the state’s positivity rate has dropped to 6.1 percent and hospitalizations are down.
Dr. Benjamin Chan, the state epidemiologist, said the numbers are trending positively.
There were 435 new cases Tuesday (188 by PCR and 247 through antigen testing) and the number of active infections has gone down from over 6,000 last week to 5,430, Chan said.
Lori Shibinette, commissioner of the state Department of Health and Human Services, said there were no new outbreaks at long-term care facilities and 12 had closed, including a particularly deadly outbreak at the New Hampshire Veterans Home in Tilton.
Of the four deaths reported Tuesday, only one was associated with a long-term care facility. About 80 percent of all deaths since March have involved the long-term care population of mostly elderly residents.
Sununu said while still early, the decline in outbreaks could be due to the vaccinations and while not all have received their second shots the first ones are likely providing some protection from the deadly respiratory virus.
While there have been 18,000 who have received their first dose and 5,000 who have received their second dose in the state’s 176 long-term care facilities, there are an estimated 33,000 people in this group.
Some staff and patients in long-term care facilities initially declined the vaccine, but more are now willing to take them, Sununu said.
School Update
Dr. Chan said school guidance has been updated now for K-12 learning models during the pandemic and the data shows these are not places where big outbreaks of the virus are occurring.
During the pandemic, he said, weekly updates with schools have been offered by health department officials “and we have tried to encourage as much in-person learning as possible.”
The new guidance looks at new data, he said. The school clusters, he said, have been very limited and four science-based new studies have findings similar to New Hampshire’s experience that schools K-12 are low-risk places, he said.
