More COVID-19 vaccine appointments now open across Mississippi, Reeves says
Over 100,000 Mississippians have had the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, a “major milestone” reached over the weekend, Gov. Tate Reeves said at a press conference Monday.
The state has administered 105,228 doses so far, over 9,000 Mississippians are fully vaccinated with both doses.
More appointments are available now that the next weekly shipment of vaccine doses is arriving and the State Department of Health has expanded its scheduling capabilities, Reeves said.
More appointments will be added over the next few days, the governor said, and he urged residents to keep trying as cancellations mean spots can open up at any time.
The call center capacity “quadrupled,” Reeves said, and an “extreme amount of work” was done on the scheduling website over the weekend to allow 6,000 users at once, Mississippi Emergency Manager Greg Michel said.
Callers should no longer get a busy signal, and website visitors should be able to see where available appointments are more easily.
“The user experience on the website will be much different from this point forward,” Michel said.
How to schedule a vaccine appointment in MS
Michel said 20,000 appointments became available Monday.
To schedule an appointment:
- Go online to covidvaccine.umc.edu
- Call the hotline at 877-374-4991
- Call Coastal Family Health Center at 877-374-4991 for an appointment at one of its clinics.
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Making sure shots get in arms
Reeves said when he met with the heads of state agencies more than two weeks ago he directed them to “approach vaccine distribution as if a hurricane were in the Gulf and we were going to take a direct hit.”
That direct hit came in the form of long call center waiting times and no more appointments available online for the existing doses.
Mississippi quickly went from being 50th out of the states getting its supply of vaccine administered “to scheduling every vaccine we possibly could,” he said.
Reeves told the Sun Herald last week he was waiting on MSDH data on how its partner agencies were doing administering the doses they’d been given.
On Monday, he said of the 147 partner agencies — including the federal pharmacy program giving doses to long-term care facilities, state-run clinics, hospitals and private clinics — that 94 of them had given less than half of the vaccines supplied to them.
“Two thirds are under 50% as of Friday,” he said.
Starting this week, he said any of those agencies that do not give out at least 65% of their doses won’t get any more.
Gulfport Memorial and Singing River Health System are both well above the number, he said and are doing “an excellent job.”
Now that it has become clear that lower-performing clinics won’t be getting a new shipment, Reeves said he expect them to do much better by the end of the week.
Barriers to getting vaccines out
Reeves said several issues have delayed getting the vaccine shots in arms:
▪ DEMAND OUTSTRIPS SUPPLY: “We can’t give doses that we don’t have,” Reeves said. The state is allocated new doses every week. “Sometimes we don’t have complete visibility on what that number is gonna be, but we do have a good idea,” Dr. Byers said.
Mississippi was allocated 37,000 doses this week, half Moderna and half Pfizer. The amount of doses Mississippi is capable of giving this week is 67,000 to 68,000 doses including the 25,000 that haven’t been administered yet and other doses the state is reallocating from long-term care facilities.
▪ REALLOCATING DOSES: Reeves said he has asked for 10,000 doses to be repurposed from long-term care facilities, after the state determined the federal program over-allocated doses. About 80% of the long-term care residents are getting the vaccine, but only a third of the staff is choosing to get one, “a challenge we’re going to have to work through in the coming weeks,” he said.
So far only 5,800 of those vaccines have been repurposed, he said, so 67,800 first doses is the maximum Mississippi can get in arm this week.
▪ NURSING HOME VACCINATIONS: “We still need to finish our nursing home vaccinations,” Reeves said. He spoke with both CVS and Walgreens representatives last week, and said 95% of nursing home residents will have access to the vaccine by the end of January.
▪ NEXT PHASES: Next, Mississippi needs to have enough vaccine to expand second doses and then start first doses to first responders and teachers, but it is not there yet. “We can give out as many vaccines as we’re given but we can’t do more than that,” he said.
The number one limiting factor — so far — is supply of vaccine doses, Reeves said. Since some percentage of the population won’t take the vaccine, at some point the limiting factor will be demand for doses we have, but he said that is “months and months” away.
This story was originally published January 18, 2021 at 4:52 PM.
