MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – Alabama health officials urged patience Wednesday amid a slow rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations, saying the state plans to soon expand who is eligible to get the shots.
The state is in the first phase of its vaccination plan, which prioritizes health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, about 377,000 all together. The state has only received 226,000 vaccines so far, however.
The next group to receive the vaccines are people over 75 and those considered at advance risk. No timeline has been established given that the state doesn’t yet have enough vaccines for the first group, but State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said officials expect to expand distribution soon.
“The vaccine is coming,” Harris said. “Even though the number of shots in arms is not as great as we would like, we believe most of the reasons for that have been worked out and are behind us. We are going to start adding additional groups of people very soon and will announce that very soon.”
Alabama, along with Mississippi, Georgia, Michigan, Kansas and Arizona, ranks at the bottom for the rate of vaccinations so far, according to numbers compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nationwide, the rollout has been slow as states have been left to take care of their own distribution.