Spencer Cox, the governor of Utah, addressed the state’s response to the coronavirus, including progress on vaccine distribution, in a weekly news briefing on Thursday.
The state opens vaccinations for people aged 65 and over and for those with certain chronic health conditions, starting with March 1, Cox announced.
As of Thursday morning, he added, “about 35% of all people aged 70 and over have been vaccinated. It’s about 84,000 of you, and that’s only a few weeks, so we’re on our way again to vaccinating those most at risk and saving lives. ”
Cox said the state has reached an “important milestone”: more doses of COVID-19 have been given – when the first and second doses are combined – than the number of positive tests reported in the state.
And 84,154 Utahns are fully vaccinated after receiving both doses of the vaccine.
“We’re trying to be more viral than the virus, and it’s happening,” he said.
The state plans to receive another 33,000 doses of the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine a week by the end of March, Cox said. Another 84,000 a week of the AstraZeneca version of the vaccine could arrive by April, Cox said.
That volume “just changes the game for all of us and that’s what we’re planning for,” he said. “That’s what we’re preparing for.”
As the state increases its vaccine distribution, Cox said “there will be scheduling problems.”
“There will be in every state, in every country in the world, there will be a bit of chaos for this to happen and we will embrace that chaos, we will solve that chaos,” he said, “and we will be shot in the arm in within seven days of that vaccination and we will save lives. ”
Over the next three weeks, Cox anticipates that all people aged 70 and over will want to be vaccinated. “We will finish that group of people and move on to the next phase,” he said.
Cox assured Utahns that people over the age of 70 who are struggling to get a vaccination meeting “will be able to get them” in the coming weeks.
In the next eligibility phase, which starts on March 1, people aged 65 and over will be eligible for the vaccine.
So do people with certain chronic health conditions, representing approximately 400,000 people aged 18 and over.
This list includes solid organ transplant recipients; certain types of cancer; people who are immunocompromised by blood, bone marrow or bone transplantation, HIV or the use of other medicines to weaken immunity; severe kidney disease on dialysis; people with uncontrolled diabetes; chronic liver disease; chronic heart disease; severe chronic respiratory diseases other than asthma; stroke and dementia.
Cox urged people not to call their health departments to schedule vaccinations now if they fall into one of those categories and said more information will come in the coming weeks.
“This will allow us to get back to normal as we save the lives of the most vulnerable,” he said.
State epidemiologist Dr. Angela Dunn said local and state health departments will focus the rest of February on completing the introduction of vaccines into the arms of people aged 70 and over.
Once this broader eligibility opens on March 1, Dunn said, the state will rely on the honor system. “If you don’t fall into these categories … don’t look for a vaccine,” she said.
The faster the state can go through high-risk populations, the lower the risk people can get a vaccination, she added.
Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said 29 Smith pharmacies and 18 Walmart locations will receive vaccine doses in Utah starting Feb. 11 – initially only for Utahns over the age of 70.
“The state actually has control over who is eligible” to get the vaccines through Walmart and Smith, Henderson said.
People who have appointments through their health department should keep those appointments, she said, rather than trying to get one through Smith or Walmart.
There will be more information on how Utahns can volunteer to help distribute the vaccine in the coming days, Henderson added.
Dunn also said that national media comparisons regarding the effectiveness of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine compared to Moderna and Pfizer were “misinformed.”
Johnson & Johnson studies have shown that the vaccine is effective in protecting 72% of people in the United States against COVID-19 infection and is 85% effective against severe diseases, she said.
“It’s very important that once the vaccine becomes available, when it’s our turn to get the vaccine, we all get the vaccine,” regardless of the company that produced it, she said.
Dunn said plans are in place to help inoculate homeless people and that Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccination may be especially appropriate for that population once it becomes available.