By Austin Mirmina.
(March 11, 2021) — Higganum resident Gloria Gorton said her 34-year-old daughter, Sarah, who has lung cancer, was hopeful she would be next in line to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
“We had been anticipating that in this next rollout, that some people with pre-existing conditions would be eligible to get the vaccine,” Gorton, 67, said. “We’ve kind of been waiting for that.”
But after Governor Ned Lamont’s Feb. 22 decision to prioritize Connecticut vaccinations by age, Gorton faced the disheartening possibility that Sarah would have to wait until May to get her shot.
“Of course we were really disappointed when we found out she was going to be in the very last group to be vaccinated,” Gorton said.
Many people in the Haddam community said they approved of Lamont’s new plan, especially those who now become eligible to get vaccinated sooner than they would have under the old system. But for some individuals with underlying medical conditions, like Sarah, the age-based approach creates both longer wait times and more uneasiness living with an already increased susceptibility of developing serious COVID-19 symptoms.
According to state’s online vaccine portal, people ages 55 to 64 started signing up for the vaccine on March 1. The starting sign-up dates for the rest of the population are as follows:
45 to 54 years old: March 22, 2021
35 to 44 years old: April 12, 2021
16 to 34 years old: May 3, 2021
In breaking with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which prioritizes frontline workers and people ages 16 to 64 years with underlying medical conditions, Lamont said the new vaccine plan will help to avoid confusion related to eligibility. Connecticut joined Rhode Island, Maine, and Delaware as the only Northeast states not to give any vaccine eligibility to people with certain medical conditions, according to a New York Times survey.
Higganum resident Michael Burns, 49, said he agreed with the decision to simplify the process, despite having a heart condition that might have given him priority to get the vaccine in another state.
“It’s been very confusing as far as what [the government] was doing initially, and how they were categorizing people,” Burns said. “It just makes sense to make it simpler.”
Burns also said he would like to see certain people, such as teachers and those with diabetes, receive priority. Under the new system, teachers, school workers, and professional childcare providers will still be eligible to receive the vaccine at special clinics dedicated to those members.
Higganum residents Jay Cassella, 62, and Doreen Staskelunas, 55, both said they favored the new plan because it allowed them to set up a vaccination appointment almost immediately. Staskelunas said she had trouble with the Vaccine Administration Management System, which is an online scheduling tool for COVID-19 vaccine appointments, but was able to pre-register with Nutmeg Pharmacy.
Nutmeg Pharmacy Owner Greg McKenna said he wants to vaccinate as many people as possible and hopes that the state keeps providing him with enough vaccines to meet the demand. McKenna said he was “ecstatic” about the arrival of the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which requires only one dose, adding that his pharmacy is in the process of ordering it.
Keith Lyke, who owns the Killingworth Family Pharmacy, said he “wasn’t the biggest fan” of the change to an age-based approach. “I do feel that there are a lot of people who should be eligible for [a vaccine] due to their co-morbidities and underlying health conditions prior to an age-based [system],” Lyke said.
Lyke added he would like to see people without a computer be able to more easily schedule an appointment. One Higganum resident, Gary, who declined to give his last name, said he is one of those people without a computer or a smart phone who is going to wait until he can buy the vaccine at a drug store or receive it at his doctor’s office.
“They have to make [the vaccine system] more accessible and not have to deal with a computer,” Gary said.
State Representative Christine Palm said she was initially skeptical of the age-based approach, because it “seemed to push essential workers and people with underlying conditions to the back.” But since then, “I’ve learned some things that have moved me into the less skeptical position,” Palm said.
Determining which workers faced a greater risk of contracting COVID-19 was one of the greatest challenges under the original plan, according to Lamont. And Palm agreed, saying that prioritizing people by age is “logistically smoother” because of the ease in verifying a person’s age using a driver’s license.
“How does the state decide, for example, somebody who works at a grocery store register versus somebody who’s in the back office doing accounting?” Palm said. “They both work at the grocery store but one is far more at risk than the other.”
Palm stressed that the state is focused on speed, and using an age-based system will help move the process along more quickly. “In the long run,” Palm said, “It’s going to be better for everybody the sooner we reach 100 percent.”
