ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – With so little vaccine to circulate, whoever receives it can be very important.
Here in Rochester, there are concerns about Mayo Clinic employees who are not in direct contact with COVID-19 patients being prioritized before others in line for the vaccine.
“We are following state and federal guidelines for those who need to be vaccinated. We are not departing from the guidelines,” said Dr. Abinash Virk, an infectious disease specialist at the Mayo Clinic.
However, rumors in the Mediterranean city claim otherwise.
“I don’t know exactly where the rumor is starting,” said Virk. “We know that some of the teleworkers were vaccinated, but they were the ones who came to campus for another job.”
Mayo says he only gave the vaccine to those who fall into group 1A in the state. Nor did it reach subcategory 1A3 due to lack of supply.
“We are ready to vaccinate. We have a phenomenal ability to vaccinate people in Mayo,” said Virk. “We have the capacity to vaccinate 10,000 people a week”.
In addition to the lack of vaccine doses, things got complicated when it comes to the next group to be vaccinated, 1B.
“Yesterday, the Minnesota Department of Health recommended that we vaccinate people over 65 years of age,” said Virk.
Previously, 1B included only individuals over 75, but it is now a broader category.
Plans for how to vaccinate this group have already started, but the vaccine application to everyone in 1A has not yet been completed.
“About 60 to 70 percent of the people we invite have been vaccinated. There are some others pending in terms of vaccination,” said Virk. “We hope to be able to complete it in the coming weeks.”
Dr. Virk reports that only a small percentage of Mayo employees received both doses of the vaccine.
She says Mayo is also following state guidelines when it comes to giving the second dose, which increases the vaccine’s effectiveness from 80 to 90% to more than 95%.