DOTHAN, Ala. – Weeks after the first Alabamians have received their vaccine – some still have no idea when they will get theirs.
“Unfortunately the amount of vaccine coming in to the state has not changed dramatically in the last month or two months so it’s difficult to expand into more providers and into more rural areas because there is just not enough vaccine still to go around,” Corey Kirkland, Administrator for The Southeastern Public Health District, said.
In January a little over 9,000 doses of the vaccine were administered in Southeastern Alabama. February will mostly be administering the second dose of the vaccine, meaning new patients will have to wait.
“Our February appointments are full with the second dose appointments,” Kirkland said. “We are working very hard to get our schedules opened up for March in all of the ten counties in the southeastern district so people can go in and make appointments.”
If you do not have access to the internet to make an appointment or sign up for the waiting list, Kirkland suggests finding a friend or family member to walk you through the process. However, if that is not an option, he said you can call the county health department.
“We are not taking any appointments at this time for February, but we can certainly talk with you about what we can do in March,” Kirkland said. “We do have some waiting lists but we’re trying not to let those waiting lists get too long because we want to be able to work those when appointments become available.”
Kirkland said to call at the end of February or the first week of March and the staff can put in an appointment in for you at that point. They are not adding new appointments until they finish working with the new vendor.
“We’re committed to getting vaccine out as quickly as possible, as efficiently as possible and we’ll continue working with our partners,” Kirkland said.
Kirkland said one of the biggest challenges they have faced is working through scheduling of the two dose process. He said there is a lot of hope in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is a one dose vaccine.
Kirkland said there is not a timeline for when the vaccine will become more accessible to the public, it all depends on availability.
