Too much spread, too little vaccine, health director tells city council

Significant community spread of COVID-19 remains a problem and there’s not enough vaccine to coming to Pinal County right now to help suppress it, City Council was told Tuesday night.

Tascha Spears, the county public health director, provided a pandemic update with the key numbers. Nearly 30,000 doses of vaccine have been administered to date and there have been 42,000 confirmed cases in Pinal, she said.

“We saw an uptick in cases last July, then started to see that acceleration beginning Nov. 14,” she said. “We peaked in January and stabilized a little bit this week and last week.”

Since the pandemic began, 627 COVID-19 deaths have been reported in the county, which continues to see large numbers of positive tests.

“We do still have a 14.8% diagnostic positivity rate, meaning the active infection percentage rate,” she said. “So, we do have significant community spread.”

There are currently 3,456 COVID related hospitalizations in Pinal County, she said.

With the vaccine coming into circulation, Spears said the biggest issue for the county is getting enough to meet demand, a concern in many U.S. counties. Pinal received 10,000 doses in its initial allocation, then allocations of 2,000 and 1,800 in the next two weeks. This week’s allocation climbed to 4,600 does, Spears said, but of that number 2,000 are designated as second doses for those who already have received their initial dose.

“That doesn’t come anywhere close to meeting the actual 1B category that we’re still in, without adding the additional 1B group (people aged 65-75) that was recommended by the CDC,” she said. According to the Pinal County web site, the combined population of the 1A and 1B groups was estimated at 75,662 people on Jan. 14.

“Our struggles have been that vaccine manufacturing is limited, and shipments are limited,” she added. “We have made the call loud and clear that we need more vaccine. It is frustrating when we open up for half an hour saying we’ve got more vaccine and within a half hour every place is fully booked.”

Vice Mayor Nancy Smith voiced a common frustration – the inability to speak to a person when calling in to the county’s COVID information line. She said the recording is a loop offering no way to get human assistance.

But Spears said the county is working this week to hire people to staff the phones. This will give those who do not have internet access, or the skill to navigate the site – primarily seniors – a chance to book their appointment or get information via a phone conversation.

In an encouraging bit of news, Spears did say that it appears that the vaccine is still effective against the new UK strain of the virus.

In response to a question from Mayor Christian Price, Spears indicated that as part of the federal government’s efforts to get more vaccine into people’s arms, a federal  program will begin Feb. 11 to ship vaccine directly to pharmacies. In Pinal County, those doses will go to pharmacies at Safeway, Albertson’s and Fry’s stores, with the specific stores yet to be determined. Spears did indicate that three Fry’s stores in the county should get vaccine allocations through this program.

Spears also addressed the chances Pinal County could get a “pod” location similar to the vaccination sites at State Farm Stadium in Glendale and Phoenix Municipal Stadium.

“We recognize pods can have a very high number of people they can serve,” she said. “We have looked at various locations throughout the county so if we get more vaccine, we could be ready to move quickly on a facility like that,” she said. “We recently asked ADHS (Arizona Department of Health Services) if they would put a regional site in Pinal County. We feel we’re well positioned to offer the vaccine not just to our citizens, but to our neighbors, especially the counties to the east.

“But whether that happens all depends on the supply of vaccine.”