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

Moore County Health Director Robert Wittmann says his COVID-19 vaccine supply has gone from "a trickle to a drip."

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.

County-by-county vaccination plans

_{The state Department of Health and Human Services has created a phased system to get North Carolina residents vaccinated against coronavirus:}

_{Phase 1A: Health care workers treating COVID-19 patients and staff and residents of long-term care facilities}

_{Phase 1B: Group 1 includes people 75 or older. Group 2 includes other health care workers and "essential" workers, such as first responders, teachers, postal workers, manufacturing workers and supermarket employees, who are 50 or older. Group 3 includes other health care workers and essential workers 49 and younger.}

_{Phase 2: Group 1 includes people ages 65 to 74. Group 2 includes people ages 16 to 64 with medical conditions, such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease, that put them at higher risk for COVID-19 complications. Group 3 includes prison inmates and others in group living settings. Group 4 includes essential workers who haven't been vaccinated yet.}

_{Phase 3: College students and high school students 16 and older.}

_{Phase 4: Everyone else}

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.