300,000 have registered to get coronavirus vaccine in N.M.

Health care workers, nursing home staff and residents remain priority in first phase of rollout, state health secretary says

Some 300,000 New Mexicans have registered to get a coronavirus vaccine and at least 48,000 have been vaccinated, the state’s secretary of health said Wednesday.

And because a quarter of the state’s vaccine providers have not reported how many doses they have administered, Dr. Tracie Collins said she estimates as many as 62,000 to 68,500 New Mexicans have received the shot.

“We’re doing really well as a state,” she said, citing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data that says New Mexico is one of the top states in reporting vaccinations.

Still, the state has over 106,000 doses of the vaccine available and over 2 million residents, so there’s a long way to go to get everyone vaccinated.

Collins said her department is still working on a vaccine

rollout plan that includes prioritizing people in different categories. She said the department will release more news soon about how those groups will be prioritized.

In the first phase, health care workers as well as staff and residents at long-term care facilities are prioritized.

“The next group we want to target is 75 and over, but we want to make sure we are prepared and don’t have disasters like in other states with people standing in line,”

Collins said during a virtual news conference Wednesday.

Collins said she hopes staff and residents of long-term care facilities will be vaccinated by the end of January.

Although New Mexico’s virus outbreak has decreased somewhat since a steep spike in infections late last year, getting residents vaccinated remains a pressing need, with the virus infecting 149,984 people statewide and causing 2,641 deaths since the pandemic began.

New Mexico reported 1,496 new infections Wednesday.

Collins said it’s too soon to say whether the state will see an increase in the number of people who test positive for the virus because of holiday gatherings and travel.

“We will follow that data closely,” she said. “Likely, we’ll begin to see it, if there’s going to be a bump, very soon.”

When asked about reports of people “line jumping” to get the vaccine before their turn — partially through the sharing of personal vaccine bar code information — Collins said, “We are aware of sporadic reports of people jumping the lines by sharing codes. We have implemented a technical fix to prevent this from happening” by linking online vaccine data about each person to their appointment time.

Asked about scheduling booster shots for the vaccine, which can be three to four weeks out from the initial dose, she said the state is working on ensuring that when you get your initial shot, you will be scheduled for the follow-up then and there.

Meanwhile, more than 10,000 New Mexicans have ordered COVID-19 home test kits through Vault Health, Collins said.

She said the state’s testing capacity is “very good. … If you need a test, you can get it.”

Collins urged residents to sign up for the vaccine at vaccinenm. org. She said the state is working on setting up a call center by week’s end to help people who may not have computer access to register for the vaccine online.