Now, in Gila County Arizona – 90 minutes east of Phoenix – anyone over the age of 18 can be vaccinated.
“We struggled to find people within the 65 category to sign up for the vaccine,” Michael O’Driscoll, director of health and emergency management at Gila, told CNN.
As a result, O’Driscoll said he was appealing to the state in February to open vaccines to the general population. The state officially approved his request on February 17th.
The saturation of first-dose vaccinations among those eligible was so successful that people working in Gila will now also be eligible from Thursday
According to O’Driscoll, Gila, a province of 54,000 people, is now in Phase 2 to administer their vaccines.
Officials attribute the country’s success with vaccines to an aggressive communications campaign to ensure that everyone who qualifies for the vaccine knows they are eligible.
“What we did was set up the pandemic exactly as we would during our fire season,” O’Driscoll said. “We set up our incident assignment very similar to that.”
The structure of the incident order has a community-wide response to which people from different departments and communities are helping to get vaccinations to residents, O’Driscoll said.
The province has reached out to aid workers, health care organizations, hospitals and doctors. “We got such tremendous support from the partners that we had about six partners,” O’Driscoll said.
The cases are declining significantly in the state and country, O’Driscoll said, adding that life in Gila will change for the better due to their vaccination efforts.
“We only have two positive cases today, where we were up to 60 a day about a month ago,” he said.
There is still reluctance among residents to be vaccinated, especially among the younger population, said Rhonda Mason, chief nurse at Cobre Regional Medical Center.
This, she said, is going to “challenge us to get herd immunity.”
Some who received the vaccine said they were grateful for the country’s efforts.
“Feels good,” Kevin Kane, 24, told CNN. “It feels like I can get on with my life when this thing is over.”
Paul Miller, who lives in Tucson but works in Gila, told CNN he is glad he is now able to receive the vaccine in the country.
He said he had not been able to visit his parents with his 2-year-old daughter for about a year.
“It’s a step closer to seeing them.”