NC reshuffles vaccine priority list

North Carolina health officials have adjusted the priority list for receiving coronavirus vaccinations to align with recent federal recommendations, officials said Wednesday.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory group last week updated its guidance, calling for people ages 75 or older and more "essential" workers to get the vaccine sooner than they previously would have.

Because such a large group was moved up in line while the amount of available vaccine remains extremely limited, North Carolina has broken the various phases of the vaccination effort into subgroups, Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, said Wednesday.

Health care workers dealing with COVID-19 patients, who began getting their first vaccine doses two weeks ago, and residents and staff at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, where vaccinations started on Monday, remain in the top-priority Phase 1A group.

People 75 and older will be in the first Phase 1B group – Cohen said this will likely start the week of Jan. 11 – followed by other health care workers and front-line essential workers – police officers, firefighters, teachers, postal workers, corrections officers, grocery clerks and others are in this group – ages 50 and older. Younger front-line workers will be in the final Phase 1B group.

"It could be 2 million people in Phase 1B, so it could take some time," Cohen said.

Gov. Roy Cooper said various health care licensing boards will be disciplining providers that don't stick to the priority list when vaccinating people.

"These are broad categories, and there are going to have to be some decisions made at the local level by people administering this vaccine as to whether someone falls into the category or not," Cooper said.

"We can't have folks jumping the line and having their families members or friends, board members, donors jumping the line," Cohen added.

In Phase 2, people ages 65 to 74 will be in the first group, followed by anyone ages 16 to 64 with a medical condition that puts them at higher risk for complications from the virus. A third group in Phase 2 will include prison inmates and others living in close group settings, followed by essential workers who weren't previously vaccinated.

Phase 3 still includes college students and high school students 16 and older. The vaccine isn't yet approved for anyone younger than 16.

The final phase will include anyone who doesn't fall into any of the previous groups.

"We have to protect ourselves and each other every day, every week, every month. The vaccines offer hope, but this hope will take time to fulfill," Cooper said.

Another 8,551 coronavirus cases were reported statewide Wednesday. That beats the previous one-day high by more than 100 cases, but DHHS officials said the figure was inflated because a technical glitch delayed the data gathering on Wednesday, so more than 24 hours' worth of data was collected.

On Tuesday, the state set a record for people hospitalized with COVID-19, at 3,377. That figure was down slightly on Wednesday, to 3,339.

But the percentage of virus tests that comes back positive was at an alarming 14.8 percent on Wednesday, or about three times the target state officials have set to keep the virus under control.

"I'm very, very worried," Cohen said, adding that anyone under 40 years old who has recently gathered with anyone outside their household "must assume" they're infected.

Despite the troubling trend lines, fewer than 64,000 people statewide have gotten their first vaccination dose in the first two weeks of the effort, even though about 230,000 doses were delivered to the state in that time.

Nationwide, only about 2 million people have been vaccinated – far short of the Trump administration's target of 20 million by the end of the year.

Cohen explained that the effort is a complex process that has to be tracked carefully. Because the vaccines come in units of 100 or more, doses have to be planned and scheduled in advance to avoid potentially wasting any vaccine.

In addition to that, the hospitals and clinics doing the vaccinations are also dealing with the surge of COVID-19 cases, not to mention last week was a holiday week, she said.

"We know that we are ramping up over the course of this week, and we will move into the next phase of vaccinating our 75-year-olds and above and the weeks beyond," she said. "I know that there's going to be a maturing of this process as we go forward. It's new for all of us."

But many of those seniors next in line for the vaccine say they have no idea how they will get their shots.

"I don’t know how to go about getting it. I sure don’t," 80-year-old Fred Joyner said.

“I don’t know how to find out about how to get it done," agreed 75-year-old Barbara Dukes.

Cohen said plans to notify and schedule seniors for their shots are still being worked out, and officials hope to have more details by next week.

"As we move into Phase 1B, if you think about how large a group that is of folks who are over 75 and all of our front-line essential workers, that's more than a million folks, and that's not the number of doses we have," she said.

WRAL's Dr. Allen Mask said seniors – and others waiting on their turn for vaccination – need to keep up with news on the vaccine rollout from the CDC, DHHS and local media. They also need to let their doctors know they want to get the shots.

“I would tell people to be patient – there is a plan – but you have to be your own best advocate,” Mask said.

Dukes and Joyner said they both want the vaccine.

"We should take it," Joyner said. "We should take it. We need to take it.”