Younger Mainers not eligible for COVID-19 vaccines can get them on ‘waste lists’
By Jessica Piper, Bangor Daily News Staff
Younger Mainers eager for a COVID-19 vaccine have gotten one by directly contacting local pharmacies about extra doses, even though the state’s general adult population will not be eligible for the vaccines for nearly another month.
The practice is blessed by Maine health officials, who are advising providers to give leftover vaccines to eligible people first but say the most important thing is that no doses go unused. Mainers in their 50s became eligible on Tuesday. Teachers and child care providers are also eligible. Maine is one of a handful of states that has not prioritized younger people with pre-existing health conditions and will open vaccines to all adults on April 19.
To avoid wasting doses, some of Maine’s more than 150 vaccine providers — including some Walmart and Walgreens locations — have set up last-minute appointments with Mainers under age 50 or turned to so-called “waste lists,” or lists of people they can call at the last minute to prevent vaccines from going to waste.
Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said there was “nothing untoward” about pharmacies giving vaccines to younger Mainers if the doses were going to expire and there were no eligible people to give them to. Maine’s vaccination policy calls for ensuring every dose is used “even if that means occasional deviations” from the state’s plan, according to a Maine CDC document.
“As a result of that, we have had very, very few doses in Maine that have gone unused,” Shah said.
It’s unclear how common the practice is, but a Bangor Daily News reporter called 10 retail pharmacies Tuesday morning to ask if a person not eligible for a vaccine under state criteria could get an appointment. One offered an appointment. Four said they had none available but might at another time or offered spots on a waiting list. Five others said they were not offering appointments or spots on a list.
A man in his 40s from Washington County who did not want to be identified told the BDN that he contacted his local Walgreens this past Sunday to see if he might be able to get added to a list and was surprised when the pharmacy asked him to come in for a shot that day. He got the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine but has not been able to make an appointment for a second dose yet and was told to reach out a few days before he is due for the second dose.
Shah said people who got their first vaccine dose but did not have an appointment for their second should aim to get both doses at the same place. He added the Maine CDC reached out to providers to tell them they should be “ready to deliver a second dose to individuals who may have gotten their first dose elsewhere” depending on allocations.
Individual pharmacies are generally vaccinating fewer people each day than larger hospital sites. They can end up with extra doses if appointments are canceled or if they host a clinic aimed at a specific population — such as a senior living facility — and fewer people than expected want vaccines.
A spokesperson for Northern Light Health, which operates nearly a dozen clinics including the mass vaccination site at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor, said the hospital system rarely has more than two or three doses at the end of each day. They are offered to site volunteers based on age.
As Maine’s vaccination system has relied largely on age, two-thirds of people aged 60 and older have received at least one vaccine dose, Shah said Tuesday. More than 590,000 doses have been administered in total. Mainers under the age of 50 can also pre-register on a new state website or by contacting some hospitals.