With declining demand, COVID-19 vaccine doses at-risk of expiring

Local case numbers remain steady

Posted 6/3/21

Earlier this year, there were thousands of Park County residents seeking to get vaccinated against COVID-19, but few available doses. Now, public health officials have thousands of doses available, …

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With declining demand, COVID-19 vaccine doses at-risk of expiring

Local case numbers remain steady

Posted

Earlier this year, there were thousands of Park County residents seeking to get vaccinated against COVID-19, but few available doses. Now, public health officials have thousands of doses available, but not many people signing up for shots.

“The level of interest in the vaccine has waned …,”  Park County Public Health Nurse Manager Bill Crampton said Wednesday, cautioning that the drop in interest could lead to doses expiring.

The Wyoming Department of Health reported Wednesday that 30 people in Park County were actively infected with COVID-19, with 29 lab-confirmed cases and one probable case. Two people were hospitalized at Cody Regional Health. Those figures were down slightly from the 32 active cases and three local hospitalizations that were reported two weeks earlier, on May 19.

As of this week, Park County Public Health had administered doses of vaccines to nearly 11,300 people, with about 780 recipients still awaiting a second dose. According to data from the Wyoming Department of Health, roughly 31.8% — or not quite a third — of Park County’s population has been fully vaccinated.

Meanwhile, Crampton still had more than 5,100 doses of Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines available on Wednesday — and he said some of those doses will start to expire later this month and at the end of July.

“Let’s try to use as much as we can of what we have before it expires,” he said.

The vaccines have been doing a good job of providing protection against the disease, Crampton said, although “we have seen breakthroughs where fully vaccinated people are still getting COVID.”

“As vaccines go this isn’t unusual,” he said. “There is always a percentage of people whose immune systems don’t respond to vaccines.”

Previous clinical studies of the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson showed the shots were 85-95% effective at preventing illness, though that was before variants emerged.

“We have vaccines, they are safe and after careful thought and discussion with your provider, you should take the opportunity to get a vaccine now,” Crampton said.

Because of the drop in demand, public health officials stopped holding large-scale vaccination clinics, but they are offering appointments on Wednesdays and Thursdays in Powell and Cody. Staffers at Heritage Health and Powell Drug are also administering free COVID-19 vaccinations, as are those at Billings Clinic, Medical Center Pharmacy, Walgreens and Albertsons in Cody.

Crampton encouraged people to plan ahead if they need to be vaccinated before a trip, given that there’s a 21- to 28-day wait between the first and second doses of the Pfizer and Moderna products. He also noted that, in the county, rapid testing is only available for people who are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms.

While it appears the pandemic is winding down, Crampton cautioned that the novel coronavirus remains new and “will be on our radar in the future.”

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