COVID vaccine doses are going to waste on the MS Coast. ‘I don’t know what else to do.’
Last week, Hancock County pharmacist Rudy Letellier was desperate to use more than 100 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine before they expired.
He called several employers and local government agencies asking if they’d like his staff to come vaccinate employees on-site. Most never got back to him. The Harrison County Sheriff’s Department did, but when pharmacists spent several hours there on Tuesday afternoon, only eight employees wanted the shot.
Letellier, who owns Waveland Pharmacy and Pharmacy in Diamondhead, ended up having to destroy the vast majority of the expiring doses.
“I don’t know how to get the word out to people, that they need to get vaccinated,” Letellier said. “People don’t want to get it anymore.”
Letellier and other independent pharmacists interviewed by the Sun Herald on Saturday said demand for their COVID-19 vaccines is slowing drastically.
State data show far more Mississippians have been vaccinated at state-run drive-thru sites and clinics than at pharmacies.
But the pharmacists’ experiences reflect a statewide problem.
As of Saturday, more than 2,600 appointments were available at the state drive-thru site in Harrison County, and more than 1,500 in Jackson County. The situation was similar around the state.
The number of vaccine doses administered statewide has fallen every week of April, according to the state department of health. For the week ending April 24, only 55,591 doses were administered, including first and second shots.
That was the lowest number since early January, aside from a week in February when winter storms closed vaccination sites for days.
How many have been vaccinated in South Mississippi?
Even as demand slows, every South Mississippi county lags the state average in proportion of residents who have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine.
According to the health department, 29% of Mississippians have gotten at least one vaccine dose. About 40% of all Americans have gotten at least one shot.
At Letellier’s pharmacy, as many as half of the people who get their first shot haven’t shown up for their second.
Here’s the proportion of residents in each South Mississippi county who have gotten first and second shots:
- George: 22% of people have gotten at least one dose, 19% of people are fully vaccinated
- Hancock: 21%, 17%
- Harrison: 27%, 21%
- Jackson: 26%, 21%
- Pearl River: 20%, 16%
- Stone: 25%, 20%
What’s stopping people from getting the vaccine?
Jennifer McRight, the owner and pharmacist at Lighthouse Pharmacy in Biloxi, got her first shipment of 100 doses of the Moderna vaccine in early April. She has only distributed 14 so far. She schedules all her vaccine appointments on one day a week, so that she can use as many doses as possible from each 10-dose vial. Even so, she’s had to throw away six doses so far.
She’s eager for more patients and has promoted the appointments on the pharmacy’s Facebook page. But demand remains very, very slow.
“I don’t know what else to do,” McRight said.
Adam Mixon, a pharmacist at Sartin’s Discount Drugs in Gulfport, said his pharmacy has been vaccinating about 30 people a day, down from 50 a day when it started vaccinations in early February.
Mixon thinks the end of the state’s worst wave of COVID-19 cases and deaths may have convinced people that things are back to normal now. The seven-day average of new cases has been in the low to mid-200s for all of April, down from a peak above 2,400 in January. But cases and hospitalizations are recently trending up slightly.
“You’ll still have people getting the vaccine, kind of a slow rate like it is now,” he said. “But unless there’s going to be big spikes again, I think it’s gonna be difficult to get a huge percentage of the population.”
Pharmacist Colleen McNulty, who works at Letellier’s pharmacies, said one major reason for vaccine skepticism is the politicization of the pandemic from the very beginning. One man told her he didn’t want to get the vaccine because it contained a microchip, a belief that is sufficiently widespread that local health authorities around the country, including in Mississippi, have had to rebut it.
McNulty said she pointed out that each dose came out of a larger vial. How would she be able to ensure that everyone’s dose contained a microchip if they were invisible?
“He just kind of looked at me, raised his eyebrows, leaned in and whispered, ‘It’s nano-tech,’ and then just kind of nodded his head, like that was supposed to explain it,” she said.
McNulty didn’t think her points made much of an impression. Eventually, though, the man agreed to get the vaccine because his wife insisted on it.
Easier access may increase interest
McNulty was one of the pharmacists from Letellier’s business who took shots to the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department on Tuesday afternoon.
“We had our hopes up,” she said. “We thought, ‘Oh, we’re gonna get rid of all these doses and not have to throw them away.”
She and her colleagues spent hours talking to employees coming in and out of the building, including during a shift change. Most people weren’t interested. But eight people agreed to get the shot, largely, McNulty thinks, because it was so convenient.
“If we weren’t there right under their nose I don’t think they would have gone and gotten it,” she said.
That experience has led her to think that focusing on distribution right where people live and work will be the best way to keep vaccine doses moving, one person at a time.
But with so many doses going unused and eventually expiring, Coast pharmacists are frustrated. In Mississippi, just 68.6% of doses received have actually been administered, well below the national average of 80%, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, and one of the lowest rates in the country.
“At a certain point I feel like we should just start giving it to other states that need it,” McNulty said.
Where to get a COVID-19 vaccine
Here’s the Sun Herald’s most recent list of pharmacies and community vaccination events where you can get a COVID-19 vaccine.
And here is contact information for the pharmacies listed in this story, all of which have doses and appointments available.
Waveland Pharmacy: Call 228-463-1055 or visit its website to make an appointment for an upcoming Saturday: www.wavelandpharmacy.com/covid-19-vaccine-waveland. 112 Auderer Blvd., Waveland, MS 39576
Lighthouse Pharmacy: Call 228-207-6730 or visit its website: www.lighthouserx.com/. 2337 Pass Road, Suite D, Biloxi, MS 39531
Sartin’s Discount Drugs: Call 228-864-3514 or visit its website: www.sartinsdiscountdrugs.com/. 4300 15th St., Suite 1, Gulfport, MS 39501
This story was originally published April 24, 2021 at 3:09 PM.
