Vaccinations for some a moving target

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

City leaders and staff at the Columbia/Boone County Health Department are working on plans to make vaccinations easily available to Boone County residents.

This comes as the second COVID-19 vaccine, Moderna, has become available to health care workers. It will be several months before the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine is available to everyone.

Local leaders have also been keeping an eye on the latest Coronavirus cases.

Monday night staff with the Columbia/Boone County Health Department provided an update on the latest COVID-19 case numbers and hospital capacity.

ABC 17 News has a replay of the update below:

Stephanie Browning, director of the Columbia/Boone County Health Department told the council members in the last few weeks the hospitals in Boone County have been receiving fewer patients from surrounding counties, giving local health care providers a break.

Browning said there are some concerning trends. In the last three weeks, the age group of people 80 years and older has had the highest case rates.

There has also been an increase in the case rate of 70 to 74 year olds getting the virus which has the highest correlations with deaths.

"We've seen an increase in deaths. We had three additional deaths today," Browning said.

Browning also explained the latest on COVID-19 vaccines.

"The one thing I would tell you about vaccines is there's a lot of things that are just developing as we go," she said.

Assistant Director of the Columbia/Boone County Health Department Scott Clardy said it is not clear when people form the antibodies from the vaccine, but it is estimated after a few weeks.

The next phase of vaccinations, phase 1B, will be for individuals with a high risk of contracting the virus, first responders, and essential workers.

It is not clear when that phase will begin.

Browning said on Sunday the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Council on Immunizations Practices has recommended phase 1B would be for people at or above 75 years old and frontline essential workers.

"The CDC has not adopted this yet as a recommendation but I'm sure they will in the next day or two and then Missouri will have to decide what they do," Browning said.

Clardy said, right now, the department is working to find everyone who can be vaccinated right now.

"There are some independent health care providers out there that aren't associated with a big health care system," he said. "And we need to make sure they're getting vaccines also. So we're trying to identify all of them."

Health care systems are currently working to get employees vaccinated, but shipments have been reduced.

For example, for doses of the Pfizer vaccine expected to get to Boone County this week, that shipment was estimated at 63,000 doses but has been reduced to 37,000 doses.

Clardy said even though it will take several weeks before the health department will be able to tell how vaccinations are impacting local case numbers, it will benefit local hospitals.

"The issue hasn't been so much lack of beds, it's been the lack of staff to work those beds. A lack of what we call staff to beds. This should take care of that issue which is a plus for the entire community," he said.