Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has issued an order that aims to streamline COVID-19 vaccinations and grow the number of places where people can get doses.
The order was issued as the state health director announced that less than 20% of doses already sent to Arizona had been administered so far.
Instead of each county having its own plan, Ducey’s executive order tells the state health department to come up with a way to expand access for all Arizonans eligible for the vaccine. The state is to also start daily reporting of county vaccinations.
State health director Dr. Cara Christ said the data is likely to start going online in the coming days. The timeline for growing the number of places to get vaccinated is similar.
“And then we will be looking to expand some of those location sites potentially as early as next week,” she said.
Christ announced that Arizona had so far received almost 315,000 vaccine doses. Roughly 57,000 have been injected.
She gave several reasons for the gap. Rural counties didn’t get vaccines until last week. Health officials had to set aside doses for long-term care facilities where people just started getting doses this week. And pre-screening for those seeking the injection has been strong.
“It was a lot more intense to make sure that we were getting our emergency room docs, our ICU nurses, those primary care individuals who are going to see a lot of COVID patients,” Christ said.
