A woman named Elizabeth receives a COVID-19 vaccination shot from a nurse at the Southwestern Public Health Department offices in Cedar City, Utah, 12 January 2021 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News
ST. GEORGE – While the The governor on Thursday apologized for the problems 70 and older tried to reach discussion slots for COVID-19 vaccinations, and he also unveiled a further expansion of the vaccine supply in the state to provide the opportunity to shoot up Walmart and Smith’s Marketplace locations.
The booking slots are apparently full as soon as it is released on Monday mornings. The same was true this week, despite more than double the available slots compared to the previous week. At the same time, the state epidemiologist warned Thursday that the coronavirus is declining sharply worldwide, but that southern Utah is lagging behind the rest of the state.
During his weekly press conference COVID-19 on Thursday, when he announced a major expansion of the supply and availability of vaccines in the next few weeks, Governor Spencer Cox responded directly to a question from St. Louis. George News on what he would say to those who could not get a booking slot for the vaccine, which was available to all Utahns 70 years old and older three weeks ago.
Cox said any other theories as to why the vaccine slots are running so fast, including that slots were reserved for others before they were made public, are false and the real problem is much simpler: there was just less vaccination than the demand for them.
To those who eagerly awaited, accept my apologies. “You’ll get yours soon,” Cox said. ‘Although it’s frustrating, the reason why it’s frustrating is that people do not get any vaccine every week. That’s why it’s frustrating. I can assure them that over the next three weeks, more and more slots will open, and that they will be able to get them. ”
In the past week, there has been a 16% increase in the supply the federal government has made to the state – from 30,000 to about 40,000 doses – and it is expected to rise to 50,000 by next week.
Cox estimates that by the end of the month, as many as 190,000 doses per week will be available.
Therefore, Cox announced that the admission to the vaccine will extend to those aged 65 and over on March 1. In addition, those with the following high-risk conditions will also be eligible to receive the vaccine as long as they are 18 years and older:
- Recipients of solid organ transplants
- Some have had cancers
- Immuno-compromised state including HIV
- Severe kidney disease
- Uncontrolled diabetes
- Obese with a body mass index of over 40
- Hepatitis
- Chronic heart disease but not high blood pressure
- Lung disease other than asthma
- Downs syndrome or cerebral palsy
- Those who have had a stroke or dementia
- Those with sickle cell anemia
Those who have already been eligible for vaccinations – including those over the age of 70 – will still be eligible after 1 March, which means that a person in the group who is not eligible will have no luck if they by the end of the month can not vaccinate.
Cox said he expects the introduction of more vaccine slots to be chaotic, but the alternative is for fewer people to be vaccinated and for the vaccine stock to plummet.
‘There will be scheduling issues. There will be different platforms. There’s going to be some chaos to make this happen. We are going to embrace that chaos and get gunshots, ”Cox said. ‘I can not overemphasize how difficult it is to get 150,000 shots a week. We’re going to do something amazing here, but it’s not going to be easy, so we ask you to be patient. ”
The Department of Public Health in Southwestern Utah has said in the past that it has the staff to take in a larger number of people who need to be vaccinated and is limited only by the amount of vaccine. There are already plans to quickly deploy a large vaccination clinic at the fair in Washington County Legacy Park, similar to the one seen at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, which was already dry during the Flu Vaccine Shootout in September.
Another place to get the vaccine in the next few weeks is the local Walmart and Smith’s Marketplaces, as part of a federal vaccination program announced this week.
Cox said there will be 29 Smith sites and 18 Walmarts vaccines by the end of next week. It is not clear at this time whether, or what, places in Southern Utah will be included.
Eligible for the vaccine at Smith’s and Walmart locations, it’s at the same stage in the local health district: those 70 years and older, first responders, K-12 school teachers and staff and medical workers.
Pandemic decreases, but Southern Utah still lags behind
One immediate effect of more people getting the vaccine was the sharp decline in new infections, hospitalizations and deaths due to the virus over the past two weeks.
Locally, new infections were in the 100-150 range per day, rather than above 200. Hospitalizations that were around 70 two weeks ago are below 37, and the average number of deaths is back in the range one per day, instead of on average four a day locally as two weeks ago.
It was noted that there were fewer hospitalizations and deaths among those in long-term care centers and older than 70 years. Long-term care centers have now seen their patients and staff complete their second round of vaccination shots and the first shots continue for those aged 70 years and older.
Dr. Angela Dunn, the state epidemiologist at the Utah Department of Health, warned that it would eventually take 70% of the hired Utahns and a daily drop in the single digits, rather than the tens, before the pandemic could be considered conquered. At this stage, not even 10% of the people in the state are fully vaccinated.
“We still have work for us,” Dunn said. “Things look really good, as long as we continue to wear masks and avoid mass gatherings.”
Dunn also singled out southwestern Utah in particular as an area that stands behind the rest of the state to get the pandemic under control. It’s not that the virus has not subsided here, Dunn said the decline in the southwestern part of the state is not declining as in the rest of Utah.
“Southwestern Utah tends to have higher cases than the rest of Utah, so we put more effort in there,” Dunn said of southern Utah. ‘We do not have specific data as to why it is not. There is only common distribution. They are still declining, just a higher issue. “
COVID-19 information sources
St. George News did everything possible to ensure that the information in this story was accurate at the time it was written. As the situation and science surrounding the coronavirus continue to evolve, some data may have changed.
See the resources below for updated information and resources.
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