Small southwestern IL county called for more COVID vaccine doses. The state listened.
Monroe County’s top health official requested more COVID-19 vaccine doses this week after noticing the allotment for Randolph County, a similarly-sized neighbor, was two and a half times larger, he said.
The state responded Thursday by promising to triple Monroe County’s allotment for next week: from 200 expected doses to 600, according to Monroe County Health Department Administrator John Wagner. Randolph County’s next allotment is 500 doses, Wagner said.
Monroe County’s population of 34,335 is slightly larger than Randolph County’s 32,106.
Vaccine supplies are still limited in the U.S., so only select groups are eligible to be vaccinated. Right now, metro-east counties are working to vaccinate health care workers, while CVS and Walgreens pharmacies give shots to long-term care residents and staff members. That first phase of distribution, known as Phase 1A, started in December in Illinois.
Wagner said Monroe County does not have a hospital, but it is home to health care professionals who work in other areas, including across the Mississippi River in Missouri. He does not know exactly how many health care workers live in the county.
Randolph County Health Department Administrator Angela Oathout said she thinks the county’s vaccine allotment has been larger because it has three hospitals: Memorial Hospital in Chester, Red Bud Regional Hospital and Sparta Community Hospital.
Wagner said Thursday that Monroe County had received a total of only 300 doses since December: none the first week of distribution, because those went directly to hospitals, and 100 doses for the second, third and fourth weeks. The amount has been so small that it took health department workers and volunteers longer to set up a drive-thru vaccination clinic than it did to get shots in people’s arms, according to Wagner. He said they have turned people away because they run out of doses within about an hour.
“We’re not through 1A obviously, with that little number of doses,” Wagner said.
He described the increased allotment coming next week as Monroe County’s “fair share of the vaccine.”
Wagner said he has not gotten details from the state about why Monroe County’s allocation was lower in prior weeks beyond an explanation that vaccine distribution is “based on data sets,” which he said the Illinois Department of Public Health has not provided to him.
The state agency did not immediately respond to a Belleville News-Democrat request for comment on decisions about vaccine allocation to Monroe and Randolph counties.
Vaccine shipments are expected to pick up over time, and more people will become eligible to get vaccinated. In Monroe County, Wagner says the health department has what it needs, including volunteers, to move through the process quickly.
“We’re set up to do 3,000 doses a day if we could just get vaccine,” Wagner said.
Nearly 4,000 metro-east residents have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of Thursday, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
BND reporter Kavahn Mansouri contributed information to this report.
This story was originally published January 14, 2021 at 2:36 PM.
