This month Gov. Henry McMaster announced a new expansion of the coronavirus Covid-19 vaccine plan. It will make almost 2.7 million more residents in South Carolina within the qualifications for covid-19 vaccine appointments.
This new plan also includes essential workers, educators, ages 55 and older and additional South Carolina residents with specific underlying health conditions.
This new news of the covid-19 vaccine plan came as South Carolina reached a one year mark of the pandemic. Also, it is a milestone of giving more than one million covid-19 vaccines. The one year mark is one year to the date of the first diagnosis of someone in South Carolina being diagnosed with the coronavirus.
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster remarked that “We are now in the position to make the majority of South Carolinaians eligible for the vaccine.
The Department of Health and Environmental Control - DHEC also gave some additional information on how they still now distribute the available covid-19 vaccines in South Carolina. Their new program will distribute the available vaccines by the population of a region and some other corresponding demographics.
Per DHEC Senior Deputy for Public Health Nick Davidson here are what they are using for their calculations:
Percent of population over 55 years old, Percent of minority population, Diabetes and hypertension prevalence, Percent below poverty rate, 2-week COVID-19 incidence rate, Percent of population still unvaccinated
Per Senior Deputy for Public Health Nick Davidson, “This is probably the largest spreadsheet I’ve come across in the last year of working at DHEC, and that’s a statement in of itself. It is an awful lot of analysis that goes into this, and it’s allowed us to arrive at this,”
He also said his department will have the ability to adjust the South Carolina Covid-19 vaccine is needed. There is a group made of vaccine administrators and community members in each region to help the department determine any problems and create possible solutions.
Also per Senior Deputy for Public Health Nick Davidson, “If you’re in a community, you certainly know and you hear and you’re having conversations with individuals in your community that help you have a better understanding of what needs there are in the community”
DHEC said that they will still be giving hospitals weekly doses for their needs.
These new regulations took effect earlier this March and will apply going forward.
There are also other new programs for allocating South Carolina’s covid-19 vaccines allotments. Farmers are said to get a new share of the vaccines. Carolina Health Centers are said to soon vaccinate over 1,000 farmers. This allotment came from the newly released South Carolina Covid-19 vaccine eligibility Phase 1B, which also included those 55 and up.
This gives hope to many to be able to soon get back to a more regular personal and work life. South Carolina’s workforce needs protection from covid-19 and this is extremely important for our food supply. Hopefully we will soon be to the phase that also protects food servers in restaurants. Our restaurant workers need to be safe and protected also.
With three vaccines now approved in South Carolina, the supply is much greater in March then it was in February. Those wanting to receive a vaccine need to take what they can get. Doctors recommend the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccines.
Per the CDC (Center of Disease Control) more than 71 million people in the United States had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine as of March 15th. 38 million of this group are fully vaccinated. The CDC is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
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