Two weeks after the first release of COVID-19 vaccines throughout Oklahoma, parts of the state have moved in the second phase of the Oklahoma State Department of Health distribution plan.
That plan includes the city of Altus, which began administering the first rounds of vaccinations to first responders this week at the Altus Community Center in order to accommodate requirements for the safe administration and temporary storage of the vaccine.
“We don’t want to sit on vaccines; we want it moving into people’s arms as quickly as possible,” said Keith Reed, deputy commissioner of the Oklahoma State Department of Health.
There will be no out-of-pocket expenses to be vaccinated, according to the city of Altus.
First responders are the first group under Phase 2 to get the Moderna vaccine.
That includes paid and unpaid members of the fire departments, law enforcement, Homeland Security, emergency managers, and medical examiners.
According to the OSDH, the rest of Phase 2 recipients include health care workers providing care for COVID-19 patients, followed by adults 65 and older and then pre-K through 12th-grade teachers and support staff. Those groups will be informed when they are eligible to receive the vaccine.
When Phase 1 of the distribution plan first began Dec. 14 with the Pfizer vaccine, there was no timetable on when the following phases would start. But many health officials said it wouldn’t be until sometime in 2021.
At that time, the stated goal by the White House was to have at least 20 million residents vaccinated nationwide by the end of the year. As of Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID Data Tracker reported just over 2.1 million people receiving their first dose.
“We certainly are not at the numbers we wanted to be at the end of December,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “I believe that as we get into January, we are going to see an increase in the momentum which, I hope, allows us to catch up to the projected pace that we had spoken about a month or two ago when we were talking about the planned rollout of the vaccinations.”
There is still no timetable for the start of phases three and four of the distribution plan which includes vaccines available to the general public.
“We really want to get those priority people vaccinated so that we can then get to what we call ‘open season’ for the general population,” Fauci said Tuesday. “When you get to the point where you can essentially say anybody and everybody who wants to be vaccinated can be vaccinated, that’s when you really turn around the dynamics of the outbreak.”
As of Wednesday, COVID- 19 cases reached 19.5 million cases nationwide and 338,000 deaths.
According to the OSDH, 3,249 is Wednesday’s 7-day rolling average for the number of new cases reported. Just more than 2,400 deaths have been reported throughout the state due to the disease.
Despite warnings to stay at home and away from groups during the holidays, health officials are expecting a significant surge in COVID-19 cases following the holiday season.