Health care workers and people 75 and older in Columbia received COVID-19 vaccinations Saturday, but Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder said the vaccines ran out within two hours, far earlier than expected.
Officials delivered the vaccine at Columbia State Community College, said Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles, on his Facebook page.
Molder said on Facebook Saturday that city officials have done everything they can to promote the COVID-19 vaccine and to make it available.
“I am disappointed to hear that vaccines ran out this morning in under two hours. Dozens and dozens of some of our most vulnerable citizens stood in line and made arrangements to do their part today, but the state didn’t do its part,” Molder said.
“Unfortunately, the rollout that we’ve experienced locally has been consistent with other failures we’ve seen from the state throughout this pandemic: a lack of coordinated response and lack of effective communication. We must do better as a state and start tackling these issues more seriously and efficiently in order to achieve the result our communities so desperately need in combatting this virus.”
Molder provided statistics that showed that as of Thursday and Friday Maury County has had 9,323 total COVID-19 cases and 925 active cases. The county’s seven-day positivity rate as of Thursday was 23 percent.
On Saturday, officials with the Tennessee Department of Health released what they described as two days’ worth of data.
“The total COVID-19 case count for Tennessee is 604,132 as of January 2, 2021 including 6,970 deaths, 3,114 current hospitalizations and 523,089 are inactive/recovered. Percent positive today is 21.63 percent,” according to the TDH.
As The Tennessee Star reported last month, U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-07) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI-02) introduced a resolution urging federal officials to revise their decision to prioritize healthy workers over elderly Americans as they distribute the COVID-19 vaccine.
About 87 million essential workers will receive the vaccine before or at the same time as elderly Americans 65 years and older, including those with high-risk health complications. This, per guidance from members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The CDC is based in Atlanta.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
More importantly, were the given information to make a risk-reward decision:
FDA Safety Surveillance of COVID-19 Vaccines :
DRAFT Working list of possible adverse event outcomes
***Subject to change***
– Guillain-Barré syndrome
– Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis
– Transverse myelitis
– Encephalitis/myelitis/encephalomyelitis/
meningoencephalitis/meningitis/
encepholapathy
– Convulsions/seizures
– Stroke
– Narcolepsy and cataplexy
– Anaphylaxis
– Acute myocardial infarction
– Myocarditis/pericarditis
– Autoimmune disease
– Deaths
– Pregnancy and birth outcomes
– Other acute demyelinating diseases
– Non-anaphylactic allergic reactions
– Thrombocytopenia
– Disseminated intravascular coagulation
– Venous thromboembolism
– Arthritis and arthralgia/joint pain
– Kawasaki disease
– Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome
in Children
– Vaccine enhanced disease
So did they have 100 vaccines? 500? 1000? This article doesn’t say how many were administered, which might help put this in context.
Molder is towing the liberal line about coordination failures, sounds like he is trying to lay this at the feet of Gov. Lee. If Lee was a Democrat I doubt there would have been any criticism.