On Tuesday, March 16, Yavapai County announced that appointments for COVID-19 vaccinations would be open to Phase 1C, encompassing adults aged 55 years and older, broadly defined “essential workers” and those below 55 with health conditions, especially obesity, asthma and diabetes.
“This change will allow us to vaccinate more people in our County,” April Rhodes, CEO of Spectrum Healthcare, stated in a press release. “Focusing on the solution has long been the goal at Spectrum Healthcare and we are eager to increase access to the vaccine within the community. To that end, we could not be more pleased to see this forward progress. This change could not be at a better time, as we are mobilizing our vaccine efforts to rural areas of Yavapai County.”
The change this week came after vaccine appointments at Spectrum Healthcare were opened on Monday, March 15, originally just for those in the age 65 and older tier. The health care nonprofit expected a repeat of its initial appointment openings in January, when high demand filled up all available times for two months within just three days. Spectrum prepared for a sudden surge of sign-ups that would force it to close down new appointments within days.
“They go very quickly,” Spectrum Vice President of Integration Sunshine Dean told Larson Newspapers in advance of opening up new appointments. “As soon as we release that information, within a few hours they’ll be gone.”
But after over 100,000 shots were administered in Yavapai County, the demand for vaccinations did not overload Spectrum’s capacity this time. Each week, the county receives 10,500 doses of the Moderna vaccine, most of which are allocated to Spectrum to distribute. But by Wednesday, March 17, there were still 2,000 open appointments for the week, leading to Spectrum to seek to widen the availability to more of the population.
“There had been a significant slowdown in the number of people signing up for visits,” Dean said. “We’re at [52.6%] of the group 65 and over. We may have reached a point where a lot of them have been vaccinated if they want it.”
“We felt that it was kind of slowing down and there was no reason not to open it up,” Yavapai County Community Health Services Public Information Officer Terri Farneti said.
Dean said that the goal of the new wider vaccine availability is still to prioritize the most at-risk populations, but that with supply finally catching up to demand, Spectrum will be erring on the side of inclusivity — if you at all fit into one of the Phase 1C categories through a job that frequently interfaces with the public or a health condition as mild as a BMI above 30, you can probably sign up to get the vaccine if appointments are available.
“We’re certainly not verifying eligibility criteria for every appointment. That would be tremendously difficult,” Dean said. “If someone feels like they fall into those categories, they should come get one. They have an eligibility checker on [the website]. The most high risk conditions are lung disease, diabetes, and obesity.”
“The appointments we have available are available and it’s first come, first serve,” Dean said. “If we run out of vaccine available, we’ll stop scheduling.”
Dean expects that once the new guidelines are widely known, the demand will catch up and appointments will again fill up quickly.
In addition to its large vaccination sites at Verde Valley Christian Church in Cottonwood, Spectrum is partnering with the county to provide doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to rural areas throughout the county through a mobile vaccination clinic. The Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, unlike the Moderna vaccine that is being given to most Yavapai County residents, does not require supercool storage and only requires one inoculation. On Wednesday, March 31, a mobile vaccine clinic will be coming to Jerome, and on Friday, April 9 it will be coming to Rimrock.
As vaccinations increase, the area continues to see a massive reduction in new COVID-19 cases compared to a few weeks ago. The Verde Valley is experiencing under 5 new COVID cases per day for the past week, and there were just two recorded COVID-19 deaths in the Verde Valley in the last seven days.
However, public health experts continue to insist on vigilance as we reach what is hopefully the last stage of the pandemic, saying that if we continue precautions for just a little while longer, we can get to safety without one last spike in COVID cases.
“We think there’s still people at risk out there that we don’t want to end up in our hospitals or our ICU. The most responsible thing is to keep doing your part,” Northern Arizona Healthcare Chief Quality Officer John Mougin said. “Until we get the entire population or 70% up to herd immunity, there’s still going to be people at risk in the community and we don’t want them to have severe disease and end up in our hospitals.”
