COLUMBIA – All South Carolinaers aged 16 and over become eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine shot on March 31, ending their need to qualify almost five weeks earlier than expected.
The announcement of opening access to all adults comes as supply is growing with the demand for life-saving shooting, said Nick Davidson, deputy director for the Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Appointments are available at more than 400 vaccine providers across the country, and a sharp increase in doses allocated by the federal government should open more slots than ever before, he said.
Suppliers in South Carolina will collectively receive nearly 236,000 doses next week, combining the first doses of the Pfizer and Moderna brands with two shots and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine alone. This is almost double the doses delivered statewide a month ago, according to DHEC.
“Making everything eligible will help fill those slots,” Davidson said, while recognizing the ad will likely bring in a bunch of people looking for a hit that could make them temporarily hard to find.
The move follows several states doing the same, including neighboring Georgia, where anyone over the age of 16 could make an appointment starting March 25th.
Younger children may not get another chance because the vaccines have not been tested on them in studies that led to their federal authorization. Of the three vaccines authorized so far, only the Pfizer brand with two shots can be given to 16- and 17-year-olds. The results of studies involving children up to 12 years of age could appear this summer.
The launch of the vaccine in South Carolina began in mid-December, focusing on health care workers, long-term care residents and first aid nurses. Age began to be a factor in January, when the elderly over 70 were added to the eligibility list.
Health officials have repeatedly said that eligibility rules have been designed to give priority to those most at risk of serious illness or death, while weekly shipments to providers have nowhere to go. by satisfying the demand.
Of the nearly 9,100 South Carolinians who died of COVID-19 in the past year, 94 percent were 55 and older; 65% of them had underlying health problems, heart disease and diabetes being the most common, according to DHEC.
The state officially moved to Phase 1B on March 8, when about 2.7 million South Carolinaers became newly eligible. The large-scale expansion did not only include anyone over the age of 55, but also included anyone over the age of 16 with certain health conditions and disabilities and any worker who cannot socially distance himself from work.
That opened up access for the vast majority of adults anyway.
To simplify things, DHEC told vaccine providers not to ask for any more eligibility checks, leaving it up to the person registering for a meeting to be honest about the qualification. This essentially allowed any adult who wanted a shot to score.
As of March 8, hundreds of vaccine providers in the state – hospitals, pharmacies, emergency care centers and public clinics – have delivered an average of more than 23,300 photos a day.
The latest announcement jumps over DHEC’s plan to move to a 1C phase in mid-April, with the intention of adding any 45- to 54-year-old man who doesn’t already fall into other eligibility categories, then officially opens it to everyone else around May 3.
More than 1.2 million South Carolinians have begun the vaccination process and about 55% of them have received all the vaccines needed for complete immunization, representing about 15% of the population, according to DHEC data.
It is still a long way from reaching the goal of herd immunity, which is when enough people are immunized to block the virus to easily find new victims when an infected person coughs, sneezes or speaks.
A full return to pre-pandemic normalcy, without masks and social distancing, will require at least 70 percent of the immunized population, Davidson said.
How quickly this will happen will depend on the willingness of people to roll up their sleeves, and studies show that a large part of the population is either hesitant or refuses to do so.
“If someone is on the fence to shoot and consider not shooting, it’s like a law enforcement officer wearing only a bulletproof vest halfway across his chest,” Davidson said of leaving the disease at COVID-19 at random. “You may be lucky, but no. It’s a deadly decision.”
Dr. Michael Kacka, DHEC’s medical consultant, took a different approach, appealing to people’s desire to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror.
“I’m ready for things to get back to normal, and really our only way to get things back to normal is for people to choose to get vaccinated,” he said. “Not only will it provide you with this protection against COVID-19, but it will also eventually lead us to a more normal life, which I think we are all prepared for at the moment.”
Follow Sean Adcox on Twitter at @seannaadcox_pc.