Low-risk Philadelphians may want to wait to get the COVID vaccine, health officials say amid shipping delays

Philadelphia’s health department said the shipping delays seen in the region are happening nationwide as well.

Published Sept. 21, 2023, 5:33 p.m. ET

Since the updated COVID-19 vaccines launched late last week, shipping delays have kept some Philadelphians from getting the shot. So have problems with insurance coverage, as several major insurers hadn’t updated their systems to allow them pay for the vaccines.

Now, Philadelphia’s health department is asking that residents without health conditions that put them at a higher risk of severe complications from the virus consider waiting one to two weeks before scheduling an appointment for their vaccine. It’s likely it will be easier to get a shot then, the department said.

“We continue to strongly recommend that everyone in Philadelphia get their COVID vaccine as soon as possible to help keep them from experiencing a severe case should they catch COVID-19,” Landrus Burress, the director of the department’s Division of Disease Control, said in a statement. “However, we acknowledge that that’s easier said than done at this point.”

The updated vaccines are designed to protect against a newer COVID variant, XBB.1.5, which is itself a variant of the omicron strain of the virus that caused widespread illness last fall. Early testing of the vaccines shows that they are also effective against other variants circulating.

Philadelphia’s health department said the shipping delays seen in the region are happening nationwide as well. Since the public health emergency over COVID ended in the spring, local health departments are no longer handling the rollout, officials said. Instead, the new COVID vaccine is being handled much like the seasonal flu shot, distributed mostly through pharmacies.

People should still be able to get them for no out-of-pocket cost, but not in the same way as they did earlier in the pandemic, when the federal government ensured that COVID vaccines were available for free. Now commercial insurance plans are expected to cover them.

Many insurers had not yet updated their billing codes when the vaccines rolled out late last week, and some Philadelphians reported that they were asked instead to pay out of pocket for a shot — in some cases up to $190.

Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP all cover the updated COVID vaccine. The city health department said last week that people who are uninsured, or whose insurance does not cover the vaccine, can get it for free through a federal initiative called the Bridge Access Program.

The health department offered the following advice to people seeking vaccines:

People who have vaccine appointments should call their pharmacies or clinics beforehand to make sure that a vaccine is available.
Residents should check with their insurance companies to make sure that their vaccine provider is within their plan’s coverage network, or “in network,” as insurance companies can now ask patients who get their vaccines at out-of-network pharmacies or doctors’ offices to pay out of pocket.
“Low-risk” residents should consider waiting “a week or two” before they make an appointment. That includes residents who are under the age of 65, are not pregnant, are not overweight or obese, do not have chronic conditions, and do not smoke.
Doses of vaccines specifically for children have also seen shipping delays, and may be more widely available in early October.

“We understand the frustration of having to wait, but implore folks to be patient: the COVID vaccine will protect you through the whole winter, even if you don’t get it until a few weeks after you hoped to,” Burress said.

COVID cases have been on an uptick in Philadelphia and nationwide recently, and the department is still giving out free rapid COVID-19 tests and high-quality masks at its five Resource Hubs, located across the city. The federal government will again be offering free COVID-19 tests on Sept. 25.