A few weeks ago, Yavapai County had trouble securing enough COVID-19 vaccines for the people who wanted them.
Spectrum Healthcare set up two large inoculation sites — one at Verde Valley Christian Church in Cottonwood and another at Findlay Toyota Event Center in Prescott Valley — able to quickly handle thousands of vaccinations every day.
The initial round of vaccine appointments crashed Spectrum’s servers, and the nonprofit expected a repeat for the second signup in mid-March.
But for the past two weeks, Yavapai County has seen a drop in individuals signing up for vaccine appointments.
Even as the county’s vaccine eligibility expanded to those age 55 and older and all the way down to adults age 18 and older — the latter in an attempt to convince more people to seek inoculations — the number of shots per day in the county has fallen in the second half of March.
Yavapai County has not been receiving fewer vaccine doses from the state during this time — with the addition of a small number of Johnson & Johnson vaccines, the vaccine supply has slightly increased — people are just not signing up to get the vaccine.
“Every day we have tons of appointments that are open,” Spectrum Vice President of Integration Sunshine Dean said. “We’ve seen a huge drop-off in appointments.”
From March 1 through 15, 32,330 doses were administered in Yavapai County. In the second half of the month, from March 16 through 31, there were just over half that amount administered, at 16,254 doses. Whereas in the first half of the month the number of shots per day never dropped below 1,540. No day after March 17 has it risen to that level.
For the past several months of distribution, Yavapai County has been ahead of the state average in vaccination rate. On Thursday, April 1, however, the state average surpassed Yavapai’s, at 30.1% to 30.0%.
There is no clear explanation as to why this has happened, according to Yavapai County Community Health Department Public Information Officer Terri Farneti, though the county’s health care providers are expected to discuss the issue at their biweekly meeting this week.
Farneti proposed several potential theories for the dropoff, including the possibility that some who were frustrated by the difficulty of signing up initially were turned off, as well as the growing availability of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which only requires one dose, making people less likely to seek out the more easily accessible Moderna one, which requires two.
“We did get more Johnson & Johnson in for next week,” Farneti said. “It’s going to be in a few more pharmacies. It’s going to be helpful. It gives people more options.”
Dean said that Spectrum is seeing some evidence of this, especially in the high demand for the vaccine that they are seeing at mobile vaccine clinics in rural areas, which have been getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. A Spectrum visit to Jerome on Wednesday, March 31, had over 300 sign-ups, according to Dean.
But Dean believes that the biggest issue for vaccine demand at the moment is just the lack of awareness among much of the population of the expanded eligibility, and she hopes that things will change as more people realize that they can go get it when they want it.
“We’re still kind of hoping that the word just isn’t out fully,” Dean said. “We’ve done a lot of efforts to get the word out — Facebook posts, press releases, radio. We’re doing everything we can. People don’t realize that it’s open now.”
Spectrum is also making changes to make things easier for people trying to get vaccinated. The nonprofit hopes to begin home visits for individuals, especially the elderly, who cannot easily come to the vaccination sites. Though they still prefer people sign up in advance, Spectrum is now allowing walk-ins to get vaccinated immediately.
“We’re just accepting it — anybody that comes in the door. And we have the capacity to sustain it,” Dean said. “If people just walk in we’ll take them. As the demand has gone down, we have the manpower to register people in real time.”
Dean and Farneti worry that the county may be approaching a point where vaccine hesitancy, where people concerned about the speed of vaccine development or general fear of vaccinations, is a factor in the rate of vaccination.
So far, after more than a year since the first trial doses of the vaccine were administered and over 150 million shots administered in the United States, there have been no significant health risks from taking the vaccine aside from some initial side effects such as fatigue and soreness.
But health leaders are nevertheless trying to reassure the hesitant and tread carefully.
“If you try to cram it down people’s throats, they won’t like it,” Farneti said. “At this point I don’t think that’s the tactic.”
“The currently available vaccines have shown excellent effectiveness at preventing serious COVID cases in those that have been vaccinated, as well as showing excellent safety profiles,” Verde Valley Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Leon Pontikes said. “We continue to recommend vaccination for all eligible people.”
“Because of the phases we’ve used, the most vulnerable have been vaccinated,” Dean said. “I feel confident that we’ve done a good job getting those people coverage.”
