NC widens COVID vaccine eligibility again. Will there be enough around Charlotte?
All adults in Charlotte and around the state will be eligible to get vaccinated by April 7, according to the new timeline Gov. Roy Cooper announced Thursday.
And all essential workers not yet vaccinated can receive their first doses as soon as March 31. That group was first slated to qualify for vaccines on April 7.
“The vaccine is our path to recovery,” Cooper said. “It is the road to normalcy. As of now, this pandemic is not over yet.”
But in Mecklenburg County, health officials continue to grapple with a tight vaccine supply and a swelling waitlist, which has been exacerbated in part by non-county residents seeking vaccinations here.
County Public Health Director Gibbie Harris said this week that Mecklenburg is at the top of a list of communities across North Carolina not receiving adequate vaccine doses. It’s unclear how many additional vaccines could be headed to Charlotte, though.
“We are starting to see higher amounts of vaccine come into the county, and I’m hoping that will have the needed impact on the percentage our population vaccinated,” Harris told county commissioners Tuesday.
North Carolina expects to get another shipment of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the next week. But it will get fewer vaccines in that shipment than expected, DHHS Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen said Thursday.
Cohen said she expects vaccination supply to increase — although state leaders are still asking federal partners for a “better forecast” on availability.
‘Eager to vaccinate’
Local health officials and hospital leaders have said eligibility does not equal availability — meaning Charlotte area providers will need to see an increase in vaccine supply before they are able to accommodate the increase in people looking for vaccine appointments.
Novant Health is “eager to vaccinate” and supports the state’s decision to make all N.C. adults eligible by the first week of April, spokeswoman Megan Rivers said in a statement.
“But, as we’ve said previously, eligibility does not equal availability,” Rivers said. “Although we still do not have the supply to meet current demand, our teams will continue to deliver shots into arms as quickly and equitably, as possible.”
A county spokeswoman did not respond to Observer questions about Mecklenburg’s capacity to accelerate distribution and begin vaccinating home-bound residents.
All essential workers eligible
The second phase of Group 4 covers all essential workers not yet immunized, including those who work in the chemical, commercial facilities, communications, construction, real estate, energy, financial services and public infrastructure sectors.
Both Cooper and Harris had previously said the state and county would be ready to open vaccine eligibility to all adults by May 1. Those timetables both changed with Cooper’s announcement Thursday.
More information on vaccination groups is available on the state Department of Health and Human Services’ website at www.ncdhhs.gov.
And anyone age 16 and older is included in Group 5. But right now, only the Pfizer vaccine is authorized for use on people aged 16 and 17, Cohen said Thursday.
Both the Moderna vaccine and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are authorized for people age 18 and older.
Restrictions eased
The acceleration in the state’s vaccination timetable comes two days after Cooper announced he would ease some COVID-19 restrictions.
The governor’s latest executive order goes into effect at 5 p.m. Friday.
Under that order, many businesses, including retail stores, museums and salons, will be able to reopen at full capacity.
And other businesses like restaurants, breweries and gyms will be able to open at 75% capacity indoors and 100% capacity outdoors.
But Mecklenburg officials issued an advisory last week urging residents not to travel over spring break, warning lax behavior can heightened coronavirus exposure risk for the entire community.
The changes comes as North Carolinas sees more and more residents receiving their COVID-19 vaccines. Almost a third of the state’s adult population has received at least one injection of a COVID-19 vaccine, Cooper said.
Vaccine honor system
At the state and local level, officials are asking North Carolinians to follow the honor system regarding their eligibility for a vaccine. Residents do not need to provide personal or employer identification to get vaccinated.
“We’re seeing people try to get appointments when they’re not eligible, and people who are eligible having difficulty getting appointments,” Harris said. “We are continuing to ask people to go with the eligibility because we know those are the individuals who are most at risk and need to be vaccinated first.”
Harris has also said people on the county’s vaccine waitlist will be selected through a combination of highest coronavirus risk, and first come, first served.
People can register online at MeckNC.gov/covid-19 or call the hotline at 980-314-9400 (select option 3 for English and option 8 for Spanish).
People who have scheduled multiple vaccination appointments should cancel duplicates as soon as possible, Harris said.
Eligible vaccine groups
Some counties in North Carolina have already begun offering vaccine appointments to everyone in Groups 1 through 5, including Craven, Greene, Cumberland and Rockingham counties. Mecklenburg County vaccination partner StarMed Healthcare said Thursday morning appointments at its Randolph County event is open to everyone over the age of 18.
North Carolinians who are pregnant or have certain medical conditions have been eligible within Group 4 since last week. The list includes:
- Asthma (moderate to severe)
- Cancer
- Chronic kidney disease
- Cystic fibrosis
- Diabetes Type 1 or 2
- Heart conditions such as coronary artery disease, cardiomyopathy
- Overweight or obesity
- Pregnancy
- Sickle cell disease (not including sickle cell trait) or thalassemia
- Smoking (current or former, defined as having smoked at least 100 cigarettes in their lifetime)
COVID trends
In Mecklenburg, after weeks of improving coronavirus metrics, key indicators — including the COVID-19 positivity rate and new daily caseload — have now started to stabilize or slightly rise, Harris told county commissioners this week.
Mecklenburg has logged more than 101,000 coronavirus cases since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Mecklenburg is reporting nearly 200 new cases each day, according to a seven-day average, according to North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
Even with stabilizing coronavirus trends, Mecklenburg is lagging behind the state in the percentage of residents vaccinated.
The health director has recently sounded the alarm about the spread of more contagious coronavirus variants that could also unravel hard-fought progress in mitigating spread. But the region still lacks genetic sequencing infrastructure to adequately screen for mutated strains from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil.
So far in North Carolina, there’s been 160 known cases of the UK variant, plus 26 cases of the South African variant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday.
In South Carolina, there’s been 45 known cases of the UK variant and 50 cases of the South African variant. The Brazilian strain has not been detected in the Carolinas yet.
“We have variants already,” Cohen said. “It is likely that this virus will change more... We want to make sure everyone is getting vaccinated as quickly as possible.”
Vaccine info in Mecklenburg County: Schedule online at starmed.care or call Public Health at 980-314-9400 (option 3 for English and option 8 for Spanish. Visit Mecknc.gov/covid-19 to join the county’s waitlist or to apply for home-based vaccination. For other providers, find your spot via the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ MySpot.NC.gov.
This story was originally published March 25, 2021 at 2:06 PM.
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