While more than 1.5 million Alabamians are now eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, people under 65 with serious medical conditions are still playing the waiting game.
“Unfortunately, Alabama has a lot of problems in abundance, chronic health problems like diabetes, and heart disease, and even obesity, and chronic lung disease,” Alabama Health Officer Scott Harris said Friday. “The group of people makes up about a third of our state.”
Harris said the state does not yet have a clear timetable for when it expects to make the vaccine available to those with pre-existing conditions that make it more likely they have serious problems if they catch COVID-19.
“Everyone deserves the vaccine,” Harris said in a media call. ‘And you know, it’s definitely not because we said someone was more important than someone else, or someone more deserving than someone else. The problem is that we just do not have enough to go around right now. ”
Harris said more than 530,000 Alabamans have received at least one dose of the two doses of COVID vaccines, but there are more than 1.5 million people in Alabama who are currently able to receive the vaccine, including people aged 65 and parent, medical workers, first responders, teachers, child care providers and certain food and critical infrastructure workers.
According to the Alabama Vaccine Award Plan – compiled under the auspices of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies – the next group of people eligible for the vaccine will include people with certain health conditions, including cancer, kidney disease, heart disease, immune problems, obesity, smoking, diabetes, pregnancy and more.
So far, there has been no separate excision for people with more serious illnesses as opposed to more common conditions such as obesity or smoking, and Harris has given no hints as to when it can be made available to the group as a whole.
“The answer to your question,” Harris said, “is that we will make it available as soon as possible. We just do not have enough now. ”
As of Friday, Alabama reported receiving just over 1 million doses of vaccine, about a third of the total number of doses needed to fully vaccinate those currently eligible. Harris said the amount of vaccine the state receives each week is slowly increasing, thanks to improvements in the manufacturing process, but the state does not expect a dramatic increase in supply unless new vaccines are allowed for use in the US.
Meanwhile, Harris said the state does not plan to offer the vaccine to additional populations before demand begins to fall among current groups.
“As long as we run clinics and give every dose we have, there is enough demand that we should not put vaccines on the shelf, I think we will continue to stay the course,” Harris said. “And then when we see that demand declines a bit, it’s time to expand.”