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By JOHN RABY
Associated Press
Tennessee has updated its scheduled rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations, including moving teachers into a higher priority category.
Dr. Lisa Piercey, Tennessee’s health commissioner, said in releasing the updated plan Wednesday that it’s important for residents and workers to pay attention to the phases because of limited supplies and delays in receiving the vaccine.
Piercey said counties could end up being at different phases of the rollout at the same time. She said the plan is focused on reducing the risk of exposure to the virus.
The current rollout is focused on health care workers, including in-patient providers, first responders, and staff members and residents of long-term care facilities. The vaccine is being offered through employers, health departments or a hospital.
The state also has a concurrent plan to vaccinate residents based on age, starting with people 75 and older. The age-based vaccinations will be rolled out through 10-year age brackets. Piercey said people age 75 and older should call their local health departments to schedule an appointment to receive the vaccine.
Groups that will be offered the vaccine after the initial phase include teachers and staff members of child care centers and K-12 schools, other first responders not covered by the initial rollout and people 16 or older who have high-risk health conditions.
Piercey said teachers have been “bumped up” in priority right behind health care workers because “we know how critically important schools are to the functioning of our society and our economy, not only keeping kids in school so that they can learn and be educated, but also keeping parents at work. If the kids are in school, then the parents can go to work.”
Industries in critical infrastructure categories are in subsequent vaccine phases. Workers in industries that aren’t specified in the phases will become eligible either as their age group is reached or according to their individual health risk.
Health officials said the state has received 170,000 doses of the vaccine and 90,000 have been administered. That doesn’t include tens of thousands of doses set aside for distribution in long-term care facilities.
Piercey said the state had hoped to reach a goal of administering 200,000 doses by the end of the year.
“We got tens of thousands of doses yesterday that were expected to be received a week ago,” Piercey said. “So that’s put us behind. That’s one of those variables that we can’t control.”