Updated. Jan. 17
The news that the federal government doesn’t actually have any extra vaccines on hand despite pledging to ship such fictional doses to states is beyond astonishing. Even recognizing the Trump Administration’s track record of lies and incompetence, this false promise sold to millions of desperate Americans is incomprehensibly heartless.
As Gov. Kate Brown noted on Friday, the revelation sets back the state’s plan to expand its vaccine program to teachers and older Oregonians as planned. The news means that many seniors who have been anxiously awaiting vaccines as a path out of isolation will have to wait even longer and could delay some schools’ plans to provide in-person instruction.
While there’s little that the state can do to shake more doses out of the federal government or manufacturers, Oregon officials should focus on what they can do: clean up their own major failures in rolling out this vaccine. Oregon still has nearly 200,000 doses on hand and will be receiving more, though not as many as expected. State and local health authorities must concentrate on fixing the significant communication, outreach and logistical failures that have added an Oregon-specific layer of dysfunction to a national debacle.
Consider that vaccinators across the state have been giving doses to people in Oregon’s “Phase 1a” group of health care professionals and residents of long-term care facilities. Also eligible are people with disabilities and their caregivers, whether they are paid employees or unpaid, such as family members.
Unfortunately, that information hasn’t been consistently communicated to public health officials and those giving vaccinations, according to advocates for people with disabilities. Shasta Kearns Moore, the mother and care provider for her 10-year-old son with disabilities, went around and around with Clackamas County health officials who insisted she was not eligible, even though a state caseworker specifically told her she was. Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, said she heard from people with disabilities whose appointments were canceled due to confusion about their eligibility. Part of the problem, she said, stemmed from an incomplete graphic that health officials relied on for who was covered and who was not. Thankfully, she said, the state health authority is now pushing hard to ensure access for those with disabilities.
But communication problems have long been an issue. Other states, such as Colorado, offer easy-to-understand timelines of when different groups of residents can expect to be eligible for a vaccine. Oregon’s COVID-19 vaccine page finally added its own infographic last week but offers little direction for when the majority of people can expect to be vaccinated. Part of the problem? Oregon has yet to map out the sequence for most Oregonians while many other states issued their prioritization schedules weeks or months ago.
Even those currently eligible to receive vaccines have struggled to find helpful information beyond a 10-page document filled with acronyms, footnotes and bureaucratic jargon. While Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen on Friday announced that the agency will finally add a central phone number for people to call and post an individualized tool for people to check their eligibility, such additions are long overdue.
Communication isn’t the only area lacking. The state’s system for tracking vaccinations is full of errors, leaving it with an inaccurate picture of which hospitals are administering doses and how many the state has left, as The Oregonian/OregonLive’s Rob Davis reported. And the state’s newly appointed vaccine advisory committee – the group tasked with developing the rest of the prioritization schedule – is being asked to quickly decide which groups should go before others to ensure that the vaccines are delivered equitably. Not only is that a tall order for a group on a rushed timeline, but members’ legitimate questions about how state and local authorities will carry out their recommendations went unanswered.
As advocates for those with disabilities can attest, such operational questions are key to deciding whether any of this prioritization even matters. If the state doesn’t have a strong, broad outreach effort with employers, universities, schools, nonprofit organizations and others, it will fail to reach the people it wants to vaccinate first. If it doesn’t provide easy-to-understand pre-vaccine education in an array of languages, it won’t convince the immigrants, refugees and others who are at higher risk to get the shot. If the state doesn’t clearly tell vaccinators who is prioritized, those eligible lose out and lose hope. If officials don’t target vaccination events for where people live and work, they will automatically cut people’s access to immunizations. And if they continue to provide such minimal information to the public, they risk losing the public’s attention and sense of urgency to get vaccines when they are finally available.
Oregon cannot afford a repeat of its unemployment disaster, in which the state’s prolonged inability to process applications from tens of thousands of laid-off Oregonians pushed many to the financial brink. The health authority must learn from those lessons now, before it’s doomed to repeat them.
-The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board
This editorial has been updated to note that the Oregon Health Authority has updated its website with additional vaccine information tools.