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PHOENIX – 750,000 more Arizonans will become eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine next week, state health officials said on Wednesday.
Starting Tuesday, January 19 at 9 a.m., Arizonans 65 and over will be allowed to make an appointment to receive the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Previously, eligibility was open to people aged 75 and over, as well as frontline workers, law enforcement, teachers, and healthcare workers.
Earlier Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that states open up vaccine distribution to people 65 years of age and older.
This week, State Farm Stadium in Glendale was transformed into a 24/7 vaccination site. It also remains open as a COVID-19 testing site. Appointments can be booked online here, or by calling the COVID-19 hotline (1-844-542-8201) or Arizona 211.
For Frank Luisi, 78, a former stock trader who worked in New York City and was there on September 11, 2001, receiving the vaccine is essential.
“I would like to get it as soon as possible,” he said, adding that he had persistent health problems following the September 11 attacks.
“There were a lot of particles in the air and got into my lungs, I have COPD, emphysema,” he says.
Like others who have tried to make an appointment on Monday this week, the process has not been easy. He struggled to book an appointment online and waited almost an hour on hold after calling a hotline to reach someone who would be able to help him schedule.
The good news though, with Wednesday’s update lowering the age of eligibility, Frank should be allowed to make an appointment as early as next week.
On Monday, the CDC and health officials with Operation Warp Speed urged states to immediately begin immunizing people 65 and over.
“In some states, the brutal micromanagement of this process has prevented vaccines from reaching more of the vulnerable population more quickly,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar II.
For additional incentives, states will now be competing with each other for a larger supply of the vaccine.
“We will allocate them according to the pace of administration indicated by the states,” said Azar II.
Then there’s this task: delivering 100 million doses to Americans in 30 days.
Officials from the National Association of Chain Drugstores said the federal government has activated the Federal Pharmaceutical Partnership Program to provide vaccines to retail pharmacies for Phase 1B and beyond. The program will mobilize more than 40,000 pharmacies across the country to distribute and inject 100 million vaccines in one month.
These 40,000 sites should perform 83 vaccinations per day over a 12-hour period, or an average of 7 vaccinations per hour.
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