Raleigh, NC North Carolina health officials have adjusted the priority list for receiving coronavirus vaccinations to conform to recent federal recommendations, officials said Wednesday.
An advisory group at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week updated its guideline, asking people aged 75 and over and more “essential” workers to get the vaccine sooner than they would before.
Because such a large group was moved up the queue while the amount of vaccine available was extremely limited, North Carolina divided the different phases of the vaccination effort into subgroups, Drs. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the department of health and human services, said on Wednesday.
Healthcare workers dealing with COVID-19 patients, who started receiving their first vaccine doses two weeks ago, and residents and staff at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, where vaccinations began on Monday, remain phase 1A of the highest priority. group.
People 75 and older will be in the first phase 1B group – Cohen said it will likely start the week of January 11 – followed by other health workers and essential workers in the front – police officers, firefighters, teachers, postal workers, correctional officers, groceries and others are in this group – 50 years and older. Younger frontline workers will be in the final Phase 1B group.
“It could be 2 million people in Phase 1B, so it could take a while,” Cohen said.
Government Roy Cooper has said that different licensing boards for healthcare providers will discipline those who do not stick to the priority list when people are vaccinated.
“These are broad categories, and decisions will have to be made at the local level by people administering this vaccine whether someone falls into that category or not,” Cooper said.
“We can not have people jumping on the bandwagon and their families or friends, councilors and donors jumping on the bandwagon,” Cohen added.
In phase 2, people aged 65 to 74 will be in the first group, followed by anyone aged 16 to 64 with a medical condition that increases the risk of complications from the virus. A third group in Phase 2 will include prison residents and other people in a close-knit group environment, followed by vital workers who have not been vaccinated before.
Phase 3 still includes university students and high school students aged 16 and older. The vaccine has not yet been approved for anyone under 16.
The final phase will include anyone who does not fall into any of the previous groups.
“We have to protect ourselves and each other every day, every week, every month. The vaccines offer hope, but this hope will take time to fulfill,” Cooper said.
A further 8551 cases of coronavirus were reported nationwide on Wednesday. It beat the previous one day by more than 100 cases, but DHHS officials said the figure was inflated because a technical error delayed data collection on Wednesday, and that more than 24 hours of data were collected.
The state set a record for people hospitalized with COVID-19 on Tuesday at 3,377. The figure was slightly lower on Wednesday at 3,339.
But the percentage of virus tests that come back positive was a disturbing 14.8 percent on Wednesday, or about three times what target state officials set out to keep the virus under control.
“I’m very, very worried,” Cohen said, adding that anyone under the age of 40 who met someone outside their household “must accept” that they are infected.
Despite the worrying trends, less than 64,000 people across the country received their first vaccination dose in the first two weeks of the effort, although about 230,000 doses were delivered to the state in that time.
Nationwide, only about 2 million people have been vaccinated – far less than the Trump administration’s target of 20 million by the end of the year.
Cohen explained that the effort is a complicated process that must be followed carefully. As the vaccines exist in units of 100 or more, doses should be planned and scheduled in advance to avoid wasting any vaccine.
In addition, the hospitals and clinics that do the vaccinations also have to do with the rise of COVID-19 cases, not to mention last week a holiday week, she said.
“We know we’re rushing up over the course of this week, and we’ll continue with the next phase of vaccinating our 75-year-olds and above and the weeks that follow,” she said. “I know there will be a ripening of this process as we move forward. It is new to all of us.”
But many of the elderly who next turn for the vaccine say they have no idea how they will get their shots.
“I do not know how to accomplish this. I certainly do not know,” said 80-year-old Fred Joyner.
“I do not know how to find out how this can be done,” agrees 75-year-old Barbara Dukes.
Cohen said plans to notify and plan seniors for their shots are still being worked out, and officials hope to have more details next week.
“If we go to phase 1B, when you think about how big a group of people over 75 and all our essential workers are at the forefront, it’s more than a million people, and it’s not the amount of doses we did not, “she said.
WRAL is dr. Allen Mask said seniors – and others waiting their turn for vaccination – should keep up with the news about the deployment of the vaccine from the CDC, DHHS and local media. They also need to let their doctors know they want the shots.
“I would tell people to be patient – there is a plan – but you have to be your best lawyer,” Mask said.
Dukes and Joyner said they both want the vaccine.
“We have to take it,” Joyner said. “We have to take it. We have to take it.”