COVID-19 Task Force’s Hanley reports frustration with obtaining vaccinations
Dr. Daniel Hanley admitted his frustration regarding obtaining COVID vaccinations for his patients at the April 12 meeting of the Pine Island COVID-19 Task Force.
“Family doctors, such as myself, who know exactly what patients need, can’t get the shots,” said Hanley, a member of the Task Force. “It’s been a pattern that’s been happening since the start of testing. Once we get the shots, no one will need it anymore.”
While Hanley said he is not opposed to working with big stores like Publix or CVS, he sees his role as mainly logistical, filling in the gaps by serving the community for high risk patients. This is happening, he said, to other general practitioners as well, however, he is aware of other doctors who have been able to acquire vaccinations for their patients.
“For me, being an independent practice, with a small clinic, starting out, I’m pretty much at the bottom of the food chain,” said Hanley.
Hanley said he doesn’t believe the lack people in his position are feeling is in anyway political or purposeful, but simply a matter of people in the midst of distribution being overwhelmed. For the most part, his patients have simply stopped asking to be tested for COVID. This, he said, is likely due to the number of people becoming vaccinated in combination with a sense of herd immunity.
Overall, he said, people seem to be less concerned about becoming infected with or transmitting the disease. Noting that the B117 strain from the UK is dominating, he said he isn’t worried zabout variant strains in the face of immunizations.
“The variants are important to know about as far as epidemiology,” said Hanley, “but from a clinical perspective, I’m treating it pretty much the same way. I’m treating it aggressively to avoid the complications. Variations happen all the time. In many ways they’re smarter than we are — they know how to evolve and adapt.”
In some cases, he said, the variations may be more transmissible, but the fight needs to basically stay the same, with people taking the previously learned measures and precautions.
“The people who are cautious, will continue to be cautious,” said Hanley. “The people who don’t believe in taking precautions, are not going to change.”
The current vaccines, he said, are a one-stop-shop game changer, viable for all strains of the COVID virus, without question.
Task Force member Sue Dahod shared recently published data regarding the Pfizer vaccine, suggesting the new variant only decreased effectiveness of the vaccine from 95 percent to 90 percent.
“The essence was that it was slightly less effective but still extremely effective against COVID,” said Dahod.
“Ninety-two percent is still awesome,” said Hanley. “Remember we are in phase four. Phase four is where medicines are distributed to the population at large. That’s where you get to see much more evidence of additional side effects, additional complications — how effective it truly is. So for this to remain 92 percent effective on a large scale is phenomenal.”
Hanley said he foresees the COVID virus shifting from pandemic to endemic, the same as a common cold or flu virus. Although he feels the United States could maintain control of the virus by the end of this year, he said globally, this may not be the case until 2022.
“We’ll still be taking precautions after 2022,” said Hanley, “I’m still going to see these kinds of patients from time to time. This will be taught in medical school. It’s not really ever really going to fully truly go away. In fact, the vaccines are going to become booster shots — clinically, flu shots.”