'A trickle to a drip.' Diminishing COVID-19 vaccine supply causing concern in rural counties

He told county leaders on Thursday that it needs to be more like a firehouse since a quarter of the county's population is 65 and older.

The Moore County Health Department currently receives 400 doses of the vaccine a week. That's down from 1,000 doses in recent weeks.

Witmann says the federal government has given states a directive.

"They're working on the national emphasis on equity," he explained.

For the next three weeks, Wittman said that emphasis is on vaccinating minority and historically under-served communities.

"Since the state only gets a finite amount of vaccinations, they took a portion of that and set it aside for these communities," he added.

Witman said since many of these communities are in urban areas, like the Triangle and Charlotte, shipments are getting diverted to large-scale vaccination clinics.

"After that, we'll go back to what were receiving before and possibly even more vaccine," he added.

Frank Quis, the chairman of the county board of commissioners, said he believes it "makes more sense to allocate more [of the vaccine] to counties like Moore County."

Quis, who is 71, pre-registered for his vaccine two weeks ago.

"It's probably gonna be a good while [before receiving the vaccine]," he said.