The update expands on the order the vaccines should be dispensed to those not included in the three subsets of Phase 1 that currently is underway.
Kentucky has a goal to administer 90 percent of all vaccine doses received in the state within seven days of arrival. The phases also help providers understand what order vaccines should be administered in, which is crucial if they are having challenges meeting the 90 percent weekly goal or if they have extra thawed vaccine.
So far, more than 60,000 vaccine doses already have been administered in Kentucky, and 57,000 more doses (27,300 from Pfizer and from 29,700 from Moderna) will be delivered this week.
“We’ve got to get these things out faster. I’m not OK with the pace that they are currently being provided,” Beshear said. “We have too many people out there who are rightfully anxious, and they need to see this whole country pick up the pace. We are certainly going to do it here in Kentucky.”
The planned vaccination phases are (updates are in bold):
- Phase 1a: Long-term care facilities, assisted living facilities, health care personnel
- Phase 1b: First responders, Kentuckians age >= 70, K-12 school personnel
- Phase 1c: Kentuckians age >= 60, anyone older than 16 with U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) highest-risk conditions for COVID-19, all essential workers
- Phase 2: Age >= 40
- Phase 3: Age >= 16
- Phase 4: Children under the age of 16 if the vaccine is approved for this age group (estimated to comprise 18 percent of Kentucky’s population).
“We are committed to getting this done quickly, efficiently and in the best way we know how and are able to deliver. We’re committed to ramping up the pace dramatically,” Stack said.
“We’re asking every vaccination site to use the prioritization guidance and stick with that, but the top level goal is for every vaccine administration site in the state to administer 90 percent or more of the vaccine doses they receive within one week, so we don’t have vaccine doses waiting in a freezer until the next week.”
More Information
To view the full daily report, incidence rate map, testing locations, long-term care and other congregate facilities update, school reports and guidance, red zone counties, red zone recommendations, the White House Coronavirus Task Force reports for Kentucky and other key guidance visit, kycovid19.ky.gov.
