In short, the City of Memphis plans to deliver 40,000 to 50,000 COVID vaccine doses per week, three or four times the current level, quickly and efficiently.
It is investigating a large student-run call center at the University of Memphis for managing telephone appointments and will be recording appointments online within weeks through a state-run system that schedules the first and second dose simultaneously.
The city of Memphis takes this responsibility soberly. We don’t take it lightly, ”Mayor Jim Strickland told reporters on Tuesday afternoon, Feb. 23.
“Our mission to vaccinate as many people as soon as possible is critical to keeping the virus under control and returning to normal as soon as possible.”
More than 2,400 doses continued to lapse on seven separate occasions. It also stocked 51,000 doses, including 30,000 that should have already been administered.
Those doses, which will expire in early March, go out this week in an expected massive effort to inoculate 40,000 people, including some 10,000 teachers.
Next week, Shelby County will receive 13,700 first doses.
One of the questions for the new team in charge, said Doug McGowen, Chief Operating Officer of the City of Memphis, is how to divide inventory by partner to best cover the county, including doses for private pharmacies and health clinics.
“This is about accountability, transparency and tracking our performance,” he said. “We do that today on the sites we operate.
By mid-March, when increased production of Pfizer begins and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine may have been licensed for emergency use, the county could receive 30,000 to 40,000 doses per week.
That, McGowen said, is “where we need to be to get people vaccinated by this summer.”
What citizens should notice immediately, Strickland said, is efficient check-in and check-out on the sites, although at least they will sign up for a few more weeks through the SignUpGenius site.
At Pipkin on Tuesday, wait times were about an hour early in the day, said Tiffany Collins, deputy director of the city’s general service and the main protagonist at city-run vaccination sites.
“We’ve seen that the average wait time is about 20 minutes,” Collins said Tuesday afternoon. And if you were there now, there’s probably no line, no waiting. We’ve vaccinated more than 800 people and it’s four o’clock. “
Pipkin had 1,200 appointments on Tuesday, she said, “and we’re limiting the average wait from hours on end to less than half an hour.”
The city and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center have been running the Appling City Cove site together since mid-January without having to send long lines or people away.
The partners said early on that people could arrive just an hour before the appointment. If they were before, they were rejected. Appointments were checked; people without them were not allowed in.
The Appling operation also keeps in touch with people in line to get information about the vaccine, so those delays don’t happen at the former vehicle inspection station.
It’s not clear whether the city will be in charge of more sites, including smaller pop-up sites, Strickland said.
“What we’re trying to do is make it a seamless transition over the next week to 10 days, properly administering the doses in the three sites we run and working with the state,” he said.
The vaccination system has been run by the Shelby County Health Department, an agency of the county government.
Strickland chose his words carefully when asked how he felt when he learned of the number of doses wasted.
‘I am clearly disappointed. I don’t quite understand all the reasons, ”he said.
Last week, health department director Alisa Haushalter said 1,300 doses had been wasted. The state said on Tuesday the actual number was 2,400.
Aside from the magnitude of the loss, Strickland says the city now “needs to know how many doses are in its stock and get those shots in their arms as soon as possible.”
James Dixon, a citizen, says Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, “In my opinion, all residents of Shelby County have failed.
“Why has it taken so long to get Shelby County Health Department out of the vaccination process?” he asked in an email.
Strickland said he was “really concerned” whether the city should have been asked to board earlier.
“What we’re trying to do together is to ensure that operations run smoothly in the future. It’s still a team effort. The health department still has a role. They are still the leader in the pandemic in general, ”said Strickland.