States see rise in unused vaccines as demand flattens, West Virginia, Louisiana and Wyoming are among the states seeing the biggest slowdowns

Vaccines are sitting on shelves in these states. They’re getting desperate to give them out. West Virginia, Louisiana and Wyoming are among the states seeing the biggest slowdowns in the share of vaccine doses administered, an analysis of federal data shows. NBC News

In the beginning, there were tens of thousands of calls for coronavirus vaccination slots.

The residents trying to make appointments at the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department in January overtaxed the rural West Virginia community’s telephone provider, causing a temporary system outage.

“No amount of phone capability was going to match the public’s demand,” Dr. Sherri Young, the county’s health officer, said.

But over the last few weeks, she’s seen a shift. The clinic still vaccinates up to 100 people per day, but the center’s waitlist has shortened. The number of no-shows at an April 10 drive-thru clinic was the highest the department had seen.

Now, Young said, “you almost have to reach out to get appointments.”

West Virginia, the first state in the nation to widely vaccinate residents of long-term care facilities, is now among the first to confront the question of what happens when demand begins to taper off.

The state’s coronavirus response czar, Dr. Clay Marsh, said a number of local health departments have asked the state to pause sending additional doses until they can use up their backlog.

“We’re seeing vaccine hesitancy more than we’ve seen before,” he said. And amid a recent rise in coronavirus cases to levels not seen since late February and with the state still well short of herd immunity, he added, “We are very worried about what could happen to West Virginia if we don’t really vaccinate enough of our population.” ...

Louisiana, Montana and Wyoming are also among states seeing the greatest slowdowns.

Public health officials say there are many reasons for the rising surplus of vaccine doses sitting on shelves. Before vaccine production ramped up, providers often maxed out quickly as residents at the greatest risk from the virus scrambled to book scarce appointments. But as availability continues to swell, there are new challenges: how quickly front-line workers are able to push out the shots, whether those who want to get vaccinated face barriers in doing so — and, most significantly, hesitancy among some residents to get vaccinated at all.

Recent polling shows that although vaccine hesitancy is on the decline, 17 percent of Americans still want to “wait and see” before getting a shot, a figure that rises to 24 percent among Black Americans. Doctors and nurses say it’s still common to hear from patients fearing complications that they’re not ready to make an appointment. Public health officials and front-line workers say that not all of that opposition derives from concerns of safety or effectiveness. Polls show Republicans are among the most likely to say they won’t receive a jab at all. ...