ATLANTA — As the most populous county in Georgia, Fulton County is essentially at the epicenter of the state's efforts to distribute and administer COVID-19 vaccines.
After initially lagging behind much of the country in distribution efforts, Georgia has recently ramped up its rate of administering vaccines, and officials are optimistic the rates can continue to increase with the Joe Biden administration promising more doses on the way to states.
The Fulton County Board of Health district director, Dr. Lynn Paxton, spoke to 11Alive Anchor Shiba Russell on Thursday morning to outline some of how the process works:
- Question: As the largest county in the state, does that mean you all get the largest number of vaccines
Answer: Well from the vaccine allocation through the Department of Public Health, it is allocated proportionally, so yes that would mean that we would be getting more than smaller counties.
- Question: How would you say the process is going in Fulton County, have there been frustrations?
Answer: Well yes, it's been frustrating for us because from the beginning there has been a shortage of vaccines, as you know, not only in this county and state, but nationwide. And there was not as much, I would say, planning at the federal level that went into the distribution process as should have happened.
So when the vaccine was released, we did start in on vaccinating our first tier 1A groups - healthcare workers and long-term care facilities and their staff - and then there was a rather abrupt expansion of that to include all people over 65. That occurred on New Year's Eve, and I'll be honest we were not equipped - in terms of our appointment scheduling and of course in terms of vaccines - to accommodate that really large increase in the number of people that were moved into tier 1A.
But we and all other counties have been spending a large amount of time trying to smooth those processes, and we have made really great strides. It's not exactly where we want it to be and we're still working on it, but it is a lot better than it was when the tier first expanded.
- Question: If you want an appoint to get a vaccine in Fulton County, is that something you can do at will, right now?
Answer: No. The way that the vaccine appointment system works is that people can go to our website or to our call center (editor's note: the number is 404-613-8150, and the line is open from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on weekdays) and there they’ll give their information and they’re put on our waitlist.
And as vaccine doses become available, we open up appointment slots. And people who are on our waitlist are then contacted either through email or via phone call, and given the link by email to where they can actually make their appointment or if it's by phone the representative on the phone will make their appointment for them at that time. But we are operating through a waitlist and that is the way that this functions.
- Question: How many doses of vaccine does Fulton County have available right now?
Answer: Well I can't speak for the entire county - the reason being is that the Fulton County Board of Health is just one of the many vaccinators in the county.
There's large hospital systems, pharmacies, other large medical providers - if they're an enrolled provider for COVID vaccine then they receive a separate allocation.
Plus people give it out, these groups give it out as it becomes available, so at any one point in time I cannot tell you exactly how many doses are in Fulton County because we at the Board of Health do not control them all, so I can't tell you exactly how many there are.
I can tell you at the Fulton County Board of Health we've already given out close on 22,000 vaccinations, and as I mentioned – we get doses of vaccine in shipments each week, and as we get them we release them, the appointments, and we give them out.
So at any one point in time we have usually already administered about 85% of the vaccines that we have on hand. And of course we have to have a certain amount of vaccine that we hold for the appointments that are coming up that week, so there is no hoarding going on when we get vaccine - we push it out.