Wake County expects 40% increase in COVID-19 vaccine allotment next week

That is an increase of more than 3,000 doses from the 8,480 first that the county had to distribute this week.

County health leaders believe the boost in capacity will allow them to vaccinate more teachers and school staff quickly.

Thousands of educators and those 65 and over already have appointments for mass vaccination events at PNC Arena over the next few days.

Gov. Roy Cooper has said other frontline, essential workers including first responders, those who work in food and agriculture production, manufacturing, and corrections workers, U.S. Postal Service workers, public transit workers and grocery workers will be eligible to start getting their shots on March 10.

While the raw numbers of available vaccines are on the rise, the number of shots available at any one clinic varies widely based on a formula established by the Department of Health and Human Services that incorporates population, risk, age and more.

DHHS takes different factors into consideration when deciding how to allocate the shots. Of 171,250 weekly first doses, 151,150 allocated are based on county population, with 20,100 targeted to counties with higher numbers of unvaccinated adults who are over 65 years of age and from historically marginalized populations.

The other 28,870 shots are divvied up across counties, newly-enrolled vaccine providers, state facilities, long-term pharmacies not participating in the federal long-term care program and community vaccination events.

Some smaller pharmacies are allocated just 100 shots.

Wake County has seen the number of vaccine providers jump from 11 to 27. In Durham County, the number of providers almost doubled, from six to 11.