PHOENIX – Another 750,000 inhabitants of Arizon will become eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine next week, state health leaders said on Wednesday.
As of Tuesday, January 19, at 9 am, Arizonans aged 65 and over will be allowed to make an appointment to receive the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Previously, eligibility was open to people aged 75 and over, as well as frontline officials, police, teachers and health professionals.
Early Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that states open up the distribution of vaccines to people 65 and older.
This week, State Farm Stadium in Glendale has been transformed into a vaccination site 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It also remains open as a COVID-19 test site. Appointments can be booked online here or by calling the COVID-19 hotline (1-844-542-8201) or Arizona 211.
For Frank Luisi, 78, a former stockbroker who worked in New York City and was there on September 11, 2001, getting the vaccine is essential.
“I would like to get it as soon as possible,” he said, adding that he has persistent health problems because of the 9/11 attacks.
“There were many particles in the air and they entered my lungs, I have COPD, emphysema,” he said.
Like other people who tried to make an appointment on Monday this week, it was not an easy process. He struggled to make an appointment online and waited almost an hour on hold after calling a hotline to speak with someone who could help him with the appointment.
The good news, however, with Wednesday’s update reducing the age of eligibility, Frank should be allowed to make an appointment as early as next week.
On Monday, the CDC and health officials with Operation Warp Speed urged states to start vaccinating people aged 65 and over immediately.
“In some states, heavy micromanagement of this process has prevented vaccines from reaching a wider range of the vulnerable population more quickly,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar II.
For additional incentives, states will now compete with each other for a larger supply of the vaccine.
“We will allocate them according to the pace of administration reported by the states,” said Azar II.
Then there is this task: delivering 100 million doses to Americans in 30 days.
Officials at the National Association of Drugstore Networks said the federal government has activated the federal pharmacy partnership program to supply vaccines to retail pharmacies for phase 1B and beyond. The program will leverage more than 40,000 pharmacies across the country to distribute and inject 100 million vaccines in one month.
These 40,000 sites would need to do 83 vaccinations a day for a period of 12 hours, an average of about 7 vaccinations per hour.