On Saturday, January 16, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks emailed invitations to individuals in the 1B eligibility class to register for the 1B rollout starting Monday, January 18 – as announced by Governor Larry Hogan – despite ongoing concerns about vaccine supplies. Category 1B includes individuals 75 and over as well as certain essential workers.
The initial rollout, which used the Maryland state vaccination registration website, was already oversubscribed by noon on January 18 and left many residents confused. Applicants who used the search function were stymied, whereas those who immediately went to a specific vaccination site at least saw whether any slots were available. Those who said they had insurance also faced the hurdle of including photographs of the front and back of their insurance card.
County Revamps Process
In response to Monday’s experience, a press conference held by Alsobrooks on Tuesday morning January 19, announced a new approach by the county. The county’s website does not now refer applicants to the state’s site. Instead it now offers a simple pre-registration form with some minimal information about the individual applying and after accepting the submission, promises to be in touch when a slot (in line with the individual’s priority) is available. To fill out the preregistration form, go to https://covid19vaccination.princegeorgescountymd.gov/.
Pace of Vaccinations
Alsobrooks’ email invitation stated that the county had about 25,000 residents in the 1A category, 95,000 in the 1B category and 150,000 in 1C. The county’s Covid-19 dashboard update on January 18 stated that just over 12,000 residents had been given their first dose of vaccine with a small number having received their second dose – roughly half of the 1A group.
County Lags
Although the pace of Prince George’s County vaccinations has picked up in the last week, it is lagging far behind other state jurisdictions, including other large urban areas. According to the state vaccination dashboard (coronavirus.maryland.gov/#Vaccine) on Tuesday, January 19, Prince George’s County has vaccinated 1.37 percent of its population, the lowest ratio of any county in the state (statistics by zip code are not available for vaccinations). The next lowest is Charles County at 1.81 percent with neighboring Montgomery County closer to state norms at 3.01 percent. The counties with the highest percentage of vaccinated residents are Garrett and Talbot (6.75 and 6.58 percent, respectively – almost five times Prince George’s percentage, though far fewer people). Several counties have achieved first vaccination percentages over 5 percent and Baltimore City, often considered underserved in health care, stands at 3.92 percent.
Maryland as a whole has given first vaccinations to approximately 4 percent of its residents and has administered approximately half of the doses distributed to it. Giving second doses to those who have received their first would almost completely use remaining doses, making additional vaccinations critically dependent on renewed supplies.
Covid-19 Statistics
Greenbelt’s zip code of 20770 has had 1,480 Covid-19 cases to date out of approximately 23,000 residents, or about 6.4 percent of the city’s population. Prince George’s County has reported 63,592 cases in its population of approximately 906,000 which is a rate of approximately 7 percent – somewhat higher than Greenbelt’s – and has experienced 1,179 deaths; this gives a county mortality rate based on reported cases of 1.9 percent. Covid-19 deaths are not reported by zip code, but if this mortality rate were applied to Greenbelt’s zip code, the number of deaths would be approximately 27.
Data used in this article were drawn from the Maryland State and Prince George’s County Dashboards (coronavirus.maryland.gov; princegeorgescountymd.gov/3397/Coronavirus, click on COVID-19 to get to the dashboard) and from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center (coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html), all of which are updated at least daily. These data were the latest available on Tuesday, January 19.
Some Vaccinations To Be Rescheduled
Based on its changed process for registering for vaccinations, Prince George’s County is resetting all Covid-19 vaccination appointments currently scheduled after February 9 at the Sports & Learning Complex. These appointments were made on Monday morning, January 18 using the state website. The Prince George’s County Health Department will send out notices to individuals who hold the affected appointments and they must fill out the pre-registration form online to reschedule their appointments. Those who have an appointment on February 9 or before should keep their scheduled appointment and will not need to fill out the pre-registration form.
Second Dose
Anyone who has an appointment for a second dose of the vaccine after February 9 will not have their appointment changed.
Read More
The announcement also contains information on the opening of other sites, the start of Phase 1C and other information and can be found at https://princegeorgescountymd.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/3373