Demand and Supply for COVID-19 Vaccines Fluctuating in Phased Rollout
DANVILLE – Supply and demand of COVID-19 vaccines has fluctuated over the past two weeks to align with the phased rollout by the Department of Health. Geisinger’s President and CEO Dr. Jaewon Ryu says they are constantly adapting to that metric, which left them with some extra capacity to move to some groups in Phase 1B prior to the expansion of 1A last week.
“Of course, you don’t want to waste that capacity, you don’t want to waste the vaccine. So, we had been working with some groups within that 1B to still scramble for those unexpected and unpredictable, available capacity, and getting them in as we saw those circumstances take place,” he said.
Ryu says Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit was a partner that helped them use the extra vaccines for teachers and staff at schools last week, “So we were working them in anticipation that the 1B category would be coming online this week anyway to find folks who would be interested, who would be in that 1B category, to come on in and get their vaccine. Now, this week, with the expansion to the 1A category, we don’t anticipate the same need to be scrambling to use up that unused capacity.”
He says they are actually seeing the opposite right now, where there’s an unprecedented demands that is trying to keep up with supply, “ So, at least for now, as we work through that 1A grouping, we don’t anticipate those scrambling kind of scenarios to play out as much as they did last week.”
Pennsylvania is still currently in Phase 1A for vaccine distribution and a breakdown of all phases can be found at health.pa.gov. You can hear all of Dr. Ryu’s remarks on the WKOK podcast page HERE.
