COVID-19 vaccines headed for Georgians 65-years and up, first responders
COVID-19 vaccines are set to roll out for Georgians ages 65-years and older, police officers and firefighters in the coming weeks as hospitals, health clinics and nursing homes continue divvying up a limited supply of early doses, Gov. Brian Kemp said Thursday, Dec. 31.
The expansion comes as vaccine providers administer shots more quickly in rural parts of Georgia than in metro areas, giving some places capacity to offer vaccines for vulnerable people besides just health-care workers and nursing home residents, said state Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey.
Officials are now aiming to open drive-thru clinics in metro Atlanta to administer vaccines by the thousands of doses for health-care workers at a given location, rather than the lesser amounts seen at local provider clinics where storing vaccines at cold temperatures is challenging.
Nearly 62,000 vaccine doses had been administered in Georgia as of late Wednesday afternoon (Dec. 30), according to state Department of Public Health data, which tends to lag by a day or two. Around 432,000 doses had been shipped and more than 1,000 providers are on hand to administer them.
“We will use every available resource to get the vaccine out as quickly as possible [and] to be part of the existing logistical infrastructure that we have,” Kemp said at a news conference Thursday, Dec. 31.
The ability of some rural areas to vaccinate local health-care workers has recently left doses “sitting in freezers” while hundreds of health-care workers in more urban parts of the state are still on waiting lists for the tightly limited supply of vaccines currently available, Toomey said.