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Health experts say Idaho receiving more COVID-19 vaccine, doing a better of job of administering it

The Idaho COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Committee met Friday to get an update on how the rollout is going. Health experts say things continue to improve.

BOISE, Idaho — The Idaho COVID-19 Vaccine Advisory Committee met again on Friday.

State epidemiologist Dr. Christine Hahn told the committee that Idaho continues to move up in the rankings among states and how many doses are administered per 100,000 people. At the state's request, the CDC is now only factoring in the adult population.

"You can see there that puts us really right squarely in the middle of the country in 27th, according to today's ranking," Dr. Hahn said. "So we're really happy with the CDC's change."

Another way Idaho is doing well is how quickly the state is getting the vaccine out to those who need it. Hahn says two sources, Bloomberg and Becker's, ranked Idaho even higher at 14th and 15th.

"Definitely quite a bit of improvement when you look at it that I think for the vaccines that we are getting in, we are administering them in a very timely manner, so we're very happy with that," she said.

Another bit of good news, the first doses of the newly-FDA approved Johnson and Johnson vaccine arrived in Idaho on Thursday. This is a one-dose vaccine that is much easier for healthcare providers to store. 

Sarah Leeds is the program manager of the Idaho Immunization Program. She said Idaho is getting more doses of the vaccines each week. This week, the state's allocation was 48,720 including the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. An additional 14,850 first doses are going out to four chain pharmacies through the federal retail pharmacy program.

Idaho is now getting three-week forecasts from the federal government on its vaccine allocations. Leeds says the state will receive 67,870 doses for its March 7th allocation, followed by 70,210 doses the week of March 14 and 71,380 doses for the week of March 21. Because that forecast came out before the Johnson and Johnson vaccine was approved for use, those doses are not included in these numbers.

One other positive thing that is happening, Leeds says 436 providers are now enrolled to administer the COVID-19 vaccine in Idaho and 36 more providers are in the enrollment process. She believes more providers will come on board with the addition of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which is easier to distribute and only requires one shot.

The committee spent a lot of time discussing clarifications to vaccine priority groups 1 and 2 and how to break down Group 3. Several votes were taken and their recommendations will be forwarded to Gov. Brad Little for his consideration.

The committee recommended expanding on the high-risk medical conditions provided by the CDC including adults with disabilities.

They also recommended prioritizing older people with medical conditions and then moving to younger groups every couple of weeks.

Earlier Friday, the governor announced that Idaho is launching a pre-registration system to help alleviate some of the frustration that many Idahoans have experienced in trying to make an appointment to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

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