How is Georgia’s COVID-19 vaccine plan affecting your chances of getting a shot?

Middle Georgians eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine have struggled to schedule vaccination appointments, and that might not change any time soon as doses trickle to area health departments.

County health departments in the North Central Health District, which covers most of Middle Georgia, consistently receive fewer doses than they request and typically don’t find out details about their vaccine shipments until a day or two before the doses arrive.

Supply and allocation issues

NCHD spokesperson Michael Hokanson said each health department requests and receives doses on a weekly basis but the number of doses they get varies drastically.

The state decides how many doses each department gets, and most NCHD departments receive between 200-400 doses per shipment.

In a recent shipment, the district’s three largest health departments — Bibb, Baldwin and Houston — received around 100 while Crawford received 500

“We can ask for a certain amount… but we have never received the full amount that we requested,” he said. “We don’t even know how much we’re going to get until about 24 to 48 hours before we actually receive it.”

Working on short notice

The two vaccines available in Georgia both require multiple shots: an initial dose and a second, or booster shot, optimally provided three or four weeks after the first. The NCHD only schedules first dose appointments if they have vaccines on hand, since district leaders don’t know how many more will be coming until a day or so before they arrive.

The NCHD is scheduling second doses as well, but those appointments are not guaranteed, since the district doesn’t know what its supply will be that far in advance. The district’s supply is dependant on how quickly the vaccines can be produced, shipped and distributed by the state.

“It’s hard to plan for an amount that you don’t know you’re going to receive,” Hokanson said. “That has been the case through the vaccination process; a lot of the pieces of our own operation are not even in our hands.”

Educators push for eligibility

The state is still in the 1A+ phase of the vaccine distribution but a group of educators and supporters are pushing for teachers to become eligible immediately. Teachers are will be eligible when Georgia moves into the next phase.

Hokanson said there is no timeline available to move to phase 1B. But the current supply and distribution of vaccines will impact when the state can move into the next phase, which includes:

• pharmacy staff
• educators
• correctional facility employees
• court employees
• food processors
• grocery store employees
• transportation staff
• nuclear power plant employees
• air traffic controllers.

This story was originally published February 5, 2021 at 5:00 AM.