The Allegheny County Department of Health will extend the vaccine release – from Friday – to include people over 50 who have certain health conditions.
Up to this point, the department has only vaccinated people aged 65 and older, citing restrictions on vaccine supply. Dr Debra Bogen, health director of the province, said the department would expand the admission once more people in the elderly population – who consider the greatest risk for serious health results from covid-19 – were vaccinated.
Bogen said Wednesday that at least 50% of Allegheny County residents 65 and older will receive at least one dose by the end of the week.
“While we still need to do work to serve this population, these data tell us it’s time to expand our health department’s requirements for vaccinations,” Bogen said.
The department will now serve people 50-64 who have high-risk health risks, including cancer, COPD, heart disease and many others admitted to Phase 1A of the state.
The change in admission requirements coincides with an overall increase in vaccine distribution. Allegheny County CEO Rich Fitzgerald said about 10,000 doses are administered nationwide each day, compared to about 2,800 a day in the last two weeks of December. According to the state Department of Health, more than 170,000 residents of Allegheny County have been fully vaccinated, and another 150,000 have been partially vaccinated.
The country’s stock of vaccines has ‘stabilized’, Bogen said. By the end of Wednesday, she said, the health department alone had administered about 65,000 doses to about 41,000 people.
The country also launched additional vaccine distribution sites in Oakland, Hill City and Ross this week.
But officials said they were still concerned about the levels of infection in the country that “persist at a certain level.” Although hospitalizations and deaths due to covid-19 are still declining, there has been a slight increase in cases over the past few weeks.
Bogen said she was concerned the province might go on a spring boom. She cited concerns, including the presence of covide variants in the country, which are more transmissible than the original viral strain. Bogen said 17 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant have been identified in Allegheny County, but that is probably ‘just the tip of the iceberg’, she said.
She is concerned that there are more opportunities for the virus to spread with relaxed restrictions on public health and said that more individuals are attending group meetings, travel and other activities during the case investigations.
“While I do not expect the potential boom to be like the one we have experienced this past winter, I am concerned,” she said. ‘Because about two-thirds of the adult population has not yet been vaccinated, including about 50% of those 65 and older, there are many people in our community who are at risk. So I ask everyone to stay careful for another month or two while we get more people vaccinated. ‘
Teghan Simonton is an author of the staff of Tribune-Review. You can contact Teghan at 724-226-4680, [email protected] or via Twitter .
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