It’s the question on the minds of many Grundy County residents: “when can I get a COVID-19 vaccine?”
The answer, for most people, is…..no one is sure.
Elizabeth Gibson, administrator of the Grundy County Health Department, said the department gets calls every day from people who are wondering when the recently-approved vaccine will be available to them. The real answer is that it depends on several factors such as their occupation, their age and the condition of their health.
“People call about it daily,” she said. “They want to know when they can get vaccinated. There are a lot who are ready to take it when we move into a tier that will allow them to have it.”
The “tier” she is referring to is the system the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has developed to prioritize the distribution of the two vaccines that are currently available, the Pfizer vaccine and the Moderna vaccine.
Under Phase 1A, residents and staff of long-term care facilities and healthcare workers who are directly involved with patients are able to get the vaccine. Ms. Gibson said in Grundy County, employees of Saint Luke’s Health System and Mosaic Life Care are getting the vaccine, administered through their own systems. Residents and staff of long-term care facilities are also included in this phase and those in Grundy County should be receiving those vaccines in the very near future. Again, those are not being distributed by the health department, but through chain pharmacies.
Phase 1B of the distribution plan will include high-risk individuals (those with health conditions who are between the ages of 18 and 64 and all individuals age 65 and over) as well as First Responders and other essential workers. These could include teachers and other education staff, childcare workers, water/wastewater workers, food and agriculture workers, critical manufacturing workers and energy workers. The DHSS has noted that staff are currently working to prioritize these groups and will be releasing that information soon.
Phase 2 includes populations deemed to be at risk, such as prisoners, the homeless, etc., and again, those populations are in the process of being prioritized by the DHSS.
Phase 3 would include all Missouri residents and Ms. Gibson said that group could be waiting until late spring to get a vaccine.
One of the issues facing local health departments, including those in small counties such as Grundy, is the requirement to order a minimum number of vaccines. For the Moderna vaccine, that number is 100 doses while for the Pfizer vaccine, the number jumps to 975. She said departments in the region will likely band together to order the vaccine. While it might seem like 100 would be an easy amount to distribute, it all depends on how many people are willing to take it during that phase.
“Just as an example, you could have a business that has 50 employees so you think using 100 would be easy. But, what if only 10 of those 50 want it? It’s going to be difficult for small guys like us. There’s a short turnaround time of when you have to use it,” she explained.
Ms. Gibson did say that when a person gets the first dose of the vaccine, a second dose is supposedly reserved for them, so that shouldn’t be a problem for those who are able to get that initial dose. The second dose of the Pfizer vaccine is given 17 to 21 days after the first one, while the second dose of the Moderna vaccine is given 24 to 28 days after the first shot.
Another issue that might affect when a person in Grundy County can get vaccinated is how quickly the state of Missouri is able to move through the phases.
“We move forward as a state,” she said. “That means that even if we have all of a tier done, we can’t move to the next one until the state moves as a whole.”
So, it remains to be seen when those who hope to get vaccinated will be able to do so. Also unknown at this time is how many people will actually take the vaccine and if that will be enough to alter the way COVID-19 is impacting our daily lives. Ms. Gibson is hopeful, but knows there isn’t a quick answer to ridding the community of the virus.
“I think we’ll be dealing with this for awhile,” she said.
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