Speaker 1: It's Thursday April. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily Dive
Speaker 1: podcast in Los Angeles, and this is Reopening America. We
Speaker 1: might be hitting another snag in the vaccine rollout, too
Speaker 1: much vaccine. Some states are starting to see the supply
Speaker 1: of doses exceed the demand. The pace of vaccinations has
Speaker 1: flattened out at about three million per day. The states
Speaker 1: are starting to see too many open vaccine appointments. Rachel Rubin,
Speaker 1: health reporter at Politico, joins us for how the strategy
Speaker 1: is changing to get more people vaccinated. Thanks for joining us, Rachel, Hi,
Speaker 1: thanks for happy all right, So we're starting to run
Speaker 1: into another problem when it comes to vaccines now. You know,
Speaker 1: after a lot of states have really expanded their tears,
Speaker 1: everybody's more eligible to go and get those vaccines. We're
Speaker 1: starting to run in the problem where states are having
Speaker 1: too many vaccine doses. The demand is not as high
Speaker 1: as the supply that we once had at the beginning.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the inverse of the whole thing now
Speaker 1: and states are coming up with different ways of how
Speaker 1: to get the word out that we still have the vaccines.
Speaker 1: It's important to get it done and you should go
Speaker 1: get it. So, Rachel, tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: what we're seeing. Yeah, exactly what you said. The supply
Speaker 1: of COVID vaccines is now exceeding demand, both in rural
Speaker 1: areas and big cities. And what was interesting was when
Speaker 1: we were doing some reporting this week, we were talking
Speaker 1: to state and local officials who all expected this to happen,
Speaker 1: but it had actually happened earlier. In the quest of vaccinates,
Speaker 1: we have been billion Americans, over three billion Americans, and
Speaker 1: they thought so it is kind of a daring twist
Speaker 1: after months of seeing kind of appointment websites crash and
Speaker 1: seen and hearing anados of people waiting around at pharmacy
Speaker 1: counter is hoping to get rest over doses, and now state, local,
Speaker 1: and federal officials are really trying to make a twist
Speaker 1: and meet people where they are. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: that's really important, is you know, some of these pop
Speaker 1: up clinics and whatnot so they can get it. And
Speaker 1: you know, you've got to make it easier for people
Speaker 1: to want to get that vaccine. And you know, we've
Speaker 1: spoken a lot of on the podcast about vaccine hesitancy
Speaker 1: for a number of reasons. Some of it is political
Speaker 1: some people just don't trust the government. Other people don't
Speaker 1: trust the you know, the pace of the vaccines were made,
Speaker 1: but by and large, they've been very effective. They are safe,
Speaker 1: and more people are getting it. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people were saying, well, I want to wait till
Speaker 1: more people get it. We've reached that point now, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So it's like, uh, it's hard
Speaker 1: to figure out that new tactics. So this is exactly
Speaker 1: what a lot of these states are are working towards
Speaker 1: figuring out what that new campaign is and how to
Speaker 1: do it. So what are some of the states doing
Speaker 1: exactly you mentioned taking the vaccines to them, But what
Speaker 1: else are we seeing out there? It's a good point.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are those people who are hesitant to
Speaker 1: get a vaccine, but there are also millions of Americans
Speaker 1: without the ability or kind of the motivation to get vaccinated.
Speaker 1: So some of the things that my colleague Goldberg and
Speaker 1: I heard about is in a peninsula in Alaska, emergency
Speaker 1: medical Service personnel UM bringing the vaccine to kind of
Speaker 1: any house or business with three or more people who
Speaker 1: wants it. In New Orleans, we heard of the city
Speaker 1: partnering with bar to do shots for shots promotion, so
Speaker 1: giving out a different kind of shot after you get
Speaker 1: the vaccine. We talked the officials in North Dakota who
Speaker 1: were working on piloting pop up clinics at Walmart, and
Speaker 1: we also heard more in Louisiana, and this was a
Speaker 1: message that we heard from other local and state officials.
Speaker 1: Was working on smaller scale events in neighborhoods, churches, and
Speaker 1: community centers and working with kind of trusted community members
Speaker 1: who can help spread the word such as physicians, providers,
Speaker 1: primary care doctors, etcetera. I'm wondering if even as part
Speaker 1: of the evolving strategy you need a roll in outreach
Speaker 1: to those people that have already had COVID and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe don't at the vaccine because they've already had it,
Speaker 1: they already had the antibodies. You have to kind of
Speaker 1: figure out who are the people that are no longer
Speaker 1: getting the vaccines and kind of target them. So it's
Speaker 1: a difficult challenge for sure. And what have a lot
Speaker 1: of these states said when it comes at least to
Speaker 1: the part of the Biden administration and figuring that out.
Speaker 1: I saw from some of your reporting, you know, they
Speaker 1: said you had a plan before. Now that the demand
Speaker 1: is dropping, you need to figure out that new plan.
Speaker 1: You need to target these new people in different ways. Governors, centers,
Speaker 1: public health experts that we talked to said that the
Speaker 1: White Health can't rely on the same strategy it used
Speaker 1: when a supply was constrained, going back to trying to
Speaker 1: meet people where they are having trusted messengers and fine
Speaker 1: administrations so that they have put three billion dollars towards
Speaker 1: investing in vaccine confidence and launch a new volunteer core.
Speaker 1: My colleague San Goldberg talked to, for example, tender John Tester,
Speaker 1: a Democrat from Montana, who said that, like testing, members
Speaker 1: of the community play a big role here. He also
Speaker 1: added that seem like the CDC to more explicitly link
Speaker 1: vaccines to return to normal life, and the BIDO administration
Speaker 1: school has been to return closer to normalcy by July four. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll see what we can do. The pace of vaccinations
Speaker 1: has flattened at about three million a day. I mean,
Speaker 1: we need to keep those numbers up and get more
Speaker 1: people vaccinated so that we can get to that HERD
Speaker 1: immunity and just like you said, open back up, get
Speaker 1: back to normal. So we'll see if we can get there.
Speaker 1: Rachel Rubin, healthy reporter at Politico, Thank you very much
Speaker 1: for joining us, Thanks for having me. I'm Oscar Ramirez
Speaker 1: and this has been reopening America. Don't forget effort today's
Speaker 1: big news stories. You can check me out on the
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