[ad_1]
Under pressure from federal authorities, Oregon Governor Kate Brown announced on Tuesday that she would allow all Oregon people 65 and over to be eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations starting January 23.
On her own, Brown also said she would allow daycare, preschool and K-12 workers to start receiving vaccinations with the senior group.
Brown’s decision to extend vaccinations to older Oregonians was in response to US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar’s urging earlier today that all states begin vaccinating 65-year-old Americans. or more and people with underlying illnesses that put them at a higher risk of serious complications from COVID-19. Azar said the federal government will no longer keep second doses of vaccine before shipping them – freeing up more doses to vaccinate this new group of vulnerable Americans.
In a Tuesday press release, Brown did not address his plans for the Oregonians with underlying conditions, and the governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for clarification. But it looks like people with underlying illnesses won’t be given immediate priority for vaccinations, since Brown didn’t mention them.
Brown said there is only one caveat about rolling out vaccines to seniors and educators: the federal government is sending more vaccines as promised. Charles Boyle, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, said he did not know how many more vaccines would arrive in Oregon.
“While this is an unexpected change of course for the federal government, receiving more vaccines is good news for states – and Oregon is ready to devote whatever resources are needed to accelerate distribution with our healthcare partners, ”Brown said in a written statement.
Brown offered no details on where soon-to-be-eligible Oregonians can get their shots. Heads of State are still working on an information dissemination system.
“If you are an Oregonian newly eligible for vaccination, I ask for your patience,” Brown continued. “Please do not call your doctor’s office or health care provider to find out when you can be vaccinated. Today’s news arrived without notice from the federal government. Oregon healthcare providers are working as fast as they can on a human level to change their vaccine delivery plans to meet this sudden change in national guidelines. “
It’s unclear how many residents the new, expanded guidelines will include. Currently, the state has allowed approximately 500,000 residents of Oregon to be vaccinated under Phase 1a. This primarily encompasses healthcare workers and residents of long-term care facilities, but allows others, including prison and prison employees and veterinary workers.
The governor did not say how many early childhood, kindergarten and kindergarten to grade 12 workers there were in the state. According to US Census figures, there are approximately 767,000 people aged 65 and over in Oregon. At most, around 21,000 of them were already eligible under phase 1a because they live in long-term care facilities.
Dramatically increasing the pool of eligible vaccine recipients will put enormous strain on an already overtaxed immunization system in the state. According to the state, 115,060 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have passed through residents’ arms, out of 321,425 doses that the CDC says have been shipped to Oregon so far. This means that around 36% of the available stock has been used – a significant improvement over the 25% that had been used about a week ago.
But vaccinations were much slower than expected on December 16, when the first vaccines were injected into healthcare workers. Oregon’s initial deployment was plagued by ineffective planning, but state officials say reforms are underway.
During the past week, an average of 7,600 doses have been administered each day. The governor has set a target of 12,000 a day by next week, but acknowledged that the pace is expected to pick up significantly in the coming weeks.
Patrick Allen, the director of the Oregon Health Authority, said at 12,000 daily injections per day, and it would take well into 2022 to inoculate 70% of the state’s population – about 3 million people – with the two-fold regimen. vaccine doses. . Seventy percent is the minimum some public health experts deem necessary to achieve collective immunity, which seriously prevents the virus from easily spreading throughout the community.
This is a developing story. Check back to OregonLive.com for updates.
Coronavirus in Oregon: Recent news | Live map tracking |Text alerts | Bulletin
– Aimee Green; [email protected]; @o_aimee
[ad_2]
Source link