Supply exceeds vaccine demand in some NC counties

North Carolina is accelerating its coronavirus vaccination schedule because health care providers in many counties said they could accommodate the demand, Gov. Roy Cooper said Tuesday.

After weeks of people scrambling to get an appointment for a vaccine shot and sometimes traveling to another county for an opening, officials said a growing supply of vaccine statewide and smaller-than-expected numbers of people in some counties wanting a shot have led to excess supply.

“Change is definitely in the air every week with vaccines," said Lisa Harrison, director of Granville Vance Public Health.

The two counties are already moving forward with vaccinating county employees after just half of the teachers and other school personnel in the two counties opted in for shots.

“That’s really on average what we are seeing with every industry or agency – about 50 percent are eager or interested," Harrison said.

The biggest challenge as the state moves to vaccinate "essential" frontline workers in the coming weeks will be the equitable distribution across industries, she said. Group 3 of the state's vaccination priority list includes everyone from grocery store clerks to police officers to university professors to clergy.

Harrison said her staff won't require proof of employment from people seeking to be vaccinated, but she does worry about others not yet eligible cutting in line.

"We’re going to work with industry leaders and employers to make sure that we are offering to all the right people and not missing anybody," she said. "[Jumping the line] is on each individual’s conscience, and we’ll work with people because we in public health want everyone vaccinated.”

An estimated 1.2 million people statewide fall into that group, officials said, including 280,000 in Wake County.

“We do have some appointment openings later in the week, and we were thinking internally how we would address that," said Ryan Jury, who heads up Wake Couty's vaccination efforts. "With the governor’s announcement, we decided we would move into Group 3 vaccination."

The county culled its vaccination waiting list of tens of thousands of names last week, removing people registered multiple times and others who had already been vaccinated elsewhere. Now, the list is down to about 250 people, so county officials added Group 3 workers to its online appointment registration system on Tuesday evening.

Wake County is getting nearly 18,000 doses of vaccine this week – more than double what it had last week – and officials plan to spread the additional capacity among physicians' offices and pharmacies that haven't gotten any vaccine previously to get it to as many people as possible.

State health officials said counties could prioritize Group 3 workers based on their age, job role or living situation. Wake County has previously given priority to people who live in ZIP codes with high infection rates.