Some people in Philadelphia are getting vaccines for the coronavirus, even though they may not qualify – and the city hasn’t figured out a way to stop it.
Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said on Friday that while people have been forwarding links for vaccination appointments to others for weeks, the company in charge of running the appointment software has not yet provided a solution to the problem. As a result, some people who use someone else’s appointment link get photos, even though they shouldn’t be able to do so yet.
Despite the problem, the city has not taken any further screening measures to ensure that the right people are vaccinated, Farley said.
“They may qualify for medical purposes, but it was not necessarily the people who were invited,” said the commissioner. “So when they are there, we vaccinate them and continue to vaccinate.”
The reason for this is that one of the city’s goals is to inoculate people as quickly as possible, so turning some down – even if they shouldn’t have had an appointment – would be counterintuitive, Farley noted.
Nevertheless, he begged people not to jump the line for their shot. He said the city and the company that runs the vaccine appointment software are working on some sort of “workaround for early next week, but it hasn’t been definitively resolved yet.”
Next week, Philadelphia expects to receive about 19,800 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 15,600 doses of the Moderna vaccine, Farley said, adding that the federal government is also allocating about 5,000 doses of Moderna to local pharmacies.
By Sunday, Feb. 28, about 234,000 people had received their first injection and 110,000 had their second, Farley said. About 23% of the vaccinees are black, 4.5% are Hispanic and 6.4% are Asian.
Philadelphia also expects approximately 13,100 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Because that vaccine is only a single dose, the city recommends that health care providers prioritize admission for people who are difficult to reach, such as transients and those who are housebound, Farley said.