By Anne Blythe
In an effort to tamp down confusion and frustration about who can and can’t get a COVID vaccine, and whether they have to have a health care provider’s prescription, state health director Larry Greenblatt has issued orders making access to the new boosters easier.
Anyone 65 and older can now go to their pharmacy without a prescription and roll up their sleeve for a jab if they want.
The same is true for people 18 and older with certain medical conditions and risk factors — a broad list that includes asthma, diabetes, obesity, cancer, depression, former or current smoking, pregnancy, many disabilities and physical inactivity.
As of Sept. 12, to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in North Carolina, one needs:
- To be 65 or older
- Or ages 18 to 64 with a preexisting condition that qualifies you for a vaccine.
- Others will need a prescription from a health care provider.
In making the announcement on Friday afternoon, Gov. Josh Stein told reporters he wanted to remove “unnecessary red tape” so people who qualified for the vaccines and wanted protection from the surge of COVID across the state could get them without a trip or call to their health provider.
North Carolina has seen a sharp increase this month in COVID detected in wastewater, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.
“As temperatures drop, and with fall right around the corner, it’s the time of year when many people want to take action to protect themselves from viruses,” Stein said, adding that people who want a vaccine should be able to get it, and those who don’t want one don’t have to get it.
“This is about choice,” Stein said. “It is not a mandate.”
Dev Sangvai, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, told reporters that calls of frustration had been coming in to him and other state health officials recently.
“We’ve heard from multiple different constituents,” Sangvai said. “We heard from the provider community that ‘We’re getting inundated with phone calls requesting prescriptions.’
“We heard from patients who thought they had the ability to access the vaccine at a pharmacy like they did last year only to find out they need a prescription. And we’ve also heard from pharmacies who were saying that there were individuals coming to the counter requesting a COVID vaccine, only to have to turn them away.”
A new standing order
North Carolina law makes it possible for the state health director to issue a blanket prescription order across all 100 counties. (Another standing order that has been in place is one that allows people to walk into a pharmacy and obtain the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone.)
The new standing orders for COVID vaccines were effective immediately.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the country’s most prominent vaccine skeptics, has been the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services since Feb. 13.
Over the past three months, he has fired CDC Director Susan Monarez, abandoned long-established protocol and amended the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s immunization schedule to no longer recommend COVID vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women. He made these decisions without rigorous research or advice from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice, or ACIP.
In August, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new COVID-19 booster to target the strains of the virus in circulation, but when doing so, the agency removed the emergency use authorization that made the vaccines more widely available.
That meant North Carolina residents could no longer walk into a pharmacy and get a vaccine. State law requires that they have a prescription unless an order such as the ones issued by the state health director for Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax say otherwise.
“Requiring an office visit to obtain a prescription to receive the COVID-19 vaccine at this critical access point is an unnecessary barrier to the health and well-being of North Carolinians,” Sangvai said. “We know that 70 percent of people in North Carolina receive their COVID-19 vaccines at a pharmacy. Vaccinations against seasonal respiratory viruses, including flu, RSV, and COVID are especially important and the right choice for those at higher risk of severe viral respiratory disease.”
Closely monitored situation
The standing orders align North Carolina with 40 other states, where people do not have to have a prescription to get a COVID vaccine.
Most pharmacies, according to state health officials, have the new COVID boosters, but Kelly Kimple, director of the state Division of Public Health, said people might want to give their pharmacies a call in advance of a visit.
This action comes nearly a week before the CDC’s immunization advisory committee — including the new Kennedy appointments — will have their first meeting since the firing of the CDC director and subsequent resignations of a host of senior officials.
Many public health officials have feared that the Kennedy appointees could make recommendations that are not grounded in well-established vaccine science.
The New York Times reported Friday that in preparation for that meeting, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had been reviewing rare cases of children who died purportedly after receiving a COVID vaccine.
Even without the advisory council’s recommendations, some states such as California, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts and New York have been going out on their own to create vaccine guidelines grounded in more rigorous research for their residents.
State public health officials have been closely monitoring the situation, and Sangvai reiterated that during the briefing with reporters.
“We are aware that many states are in conversations to understand how to best implement immunization practices,” Sangvai said. “We are currently not in any specific conversation, but are currently looking at ways that we may get involved with other states.”
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