Maine is planning longer clinic hours, weekend service and further involvement from doctors and independent pharmacies when the state opens coronavirus vaccine eligibility to 660,000 members of the general public in six weeks.
The state’s age-based vaccination plan from Gov. Janet Mills was accelerated after a promised surge in supply in the spring led President Joe Biden to issue a mandate telling states to vaccinate everyone 16 and older starting in May. Maine is now offering shots to people 60 and older, with those in their 50s next in April followed by all adults starting May 1.
It could mean the introduction of more ways to get vaccinated, including drive-thru clinics like those in Brunswick and Buxton. But the major changes will likely be when and where vaccines are available, Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Nirav Shah told reporters on Tuesday.
The state is working with providers to determine if they have the capacity to increase both the number of shots delivered and the hours and days of clinics, Shah said. The hope is to have later clinics and weekend availability to accommodate the shift so providers are not ramping up after eligibility opens up and interested Mainers are not struggling to find a dose.
That effort could require anything from state support for additional staffing or finding new spaces for current providers as well as tapping others, including family doctors who have not been involved in the rollout to date and independent pharmacies that have worked largely in long-term care settings, for an expanded role in the process.
“If you need more registration people to help get people in the door and into a vaccination chair, let’s work on that now, rather than after we start getting vaccines,” Shah said. “Basically what my message to vaccination sites across Maine is, ‘Let’s drill the well before we get thirsty.’”
Space constraints could be a challenge for independent pharmacies, said Charles Ouellette, who owns St. John Valley Pharmacy in Fort Kent and Bangor Drug in the Queen City. After vaccinating long-term settings, he is now doing small amounts of age-eligible Mainers. This week, he will be giving shots to 50 people in concert with Northern Maine Medical Center.
His problem is that the pharmacy is located in a grocery store, where only two people can safely wait for a recommended 15-minute observation period after their shot. The solution is at a nearby senior center, where Ouellette said he has an agreement to run a larger clinic with volunteers. The pharmacy is also working on a scheduling system and text and phone notifications for people to streamline appointments.
“We could do so much more once we get access to larger amounts of vaccines,” he said.
Bigger providers will likely rely on their current infrastructure. John Porter, a spokesperson for Portland-based MaineHealth, said the ramp-up will not require any more staff or clinics than what the hospital system already has in place. The state’s biggest provider has consistently said it can handle twice as many vaccines as it is giving already at its nine clinics.
“It would be a really good problem to have more vaccine than we can handle,” he said.
Other measures that could make vaccines more convenient, like drive-thru clinics, may be more prominent as the weather changes. Dr. James Jarvis, who leads Bangor-based Northern Light Health’s COVID-19 response, said recently that the system has not had to cancel any clinics despite snow storms delaying vaccines a few times this year.
That could be a problem for drive-thru clinics that force staffers to be outside, but warmer days and the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine could change that, he said.
“At this time we feel very comfortable with our vaccine sites across the state,” he said. “But we’re always looking for opportunities on how we can improve and be better.”