COLUMBIA – All South Carolina people 16 and older are eligible for a COVID-19 vaccination shot on March 31, ending the need to fit into a qualifying category nearly five weeks earlier than expected.
The announcement opening access to all adults is as supply is catching up with demand for the potentially life-saving shot, said Nick Davidson, deputy director of the State Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Appointments are available from more than 400 vaccine providers in the state, and a surge in doses allocated by the federal government should open more slots than ever, he said.
Providers in South Carolina will collectively receive nearly 236,000 doses next week, combining the first two-shot doses of the Pfizer and Moderna brands with Johnson & Johnson’s solitary vaccine. That’s nearly double the doses shipped statewide a month ago, according to DHEC.
“ Making everyone eligible can fill those slots, ” said Davidson, while recognizing the announcement will likely trigger a flood of people looking for an opportunity that would temporarily make them hard to find.
The move follows several other states doing the same, including neighboring Georgia, where anyone 16 and older could book an appointment starting March 25.
Younger children can’t get a shot yet because the vaccines haven’t been tested on them in the studies that led to their federal approval. Of the three vaccines approved so far, only the Pfizer brand with two injections can be given to 16- and 17-year-olds. Results of studies with children as young as 12 years old could appear this summer.
Vaccine rollout in South Carolina began in mid-December with a focus on health professionals, long-term care residents, and medical first responders. Age started to be a factor in January, when seniors 70 and older were added to the eligibility list.
Health officials have repeatedly said that the eligibility rules are designed to prioritize those most at risk of becoming seriously ill or dying, while weekly shipments to suppliers came nowhere close to meeting demand.
Of the nearly 9,100 South Carolina people who died with COVID-19 in the past year, 94 percent were 55 and older; 65 percent of them had underlying health problems, with heart disease and diabetes being the most common, according to DHEC.
The state officially moved into Phase 1B on March 8, when an estimated 2.7 million South Carolina were newly eligible. The broad expansion included not only everyone 55 and older, but also everyone 16 and older with certain health problems and disabilities, and any worker who cannot keep a social distance at work.
That opened access to the vast majority of adults anyway.
To keep things simple, DHEC told vaccine providers to no longer require any verification of eligibility, and it to the person who signed up for an appointment to be fair about qualification. That essentially allowed any adult to sign up.
As of March 8, the state’s hundreds of vaccine providers – hospitals, pharmacies, emergency care centers and public clinics – have given an average of more than 23,300 injections per day.
The latest announcement jumps over DHEC’s plan to switch to a Stage 1C in mid-April, with the intention of adding any 45- to 54-year-olds who haven’t yet fell into other eligibility categories, then officially opening it up to everyone around. 3rd of May.
More than 1.2 million South Carolina people have begun the vaccination process, and about 55 percent of them have received all the injections necessary for full immunization, representing about 15 percent of the population, according to DHEC data.
That’s a long way from the goal of herd immunity, which is when enough people are immunized to keep the virus from easily finding new victims when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or talks.
To fully return to pre-pandemic normalcy, without masks and social aloofness, at least 70 percent of the population will be immunized, Davidson said.
How quickly that happens depends on people’s willingness to roll up their sleeves, and studies show that a large proportion of the population hesitate or refuse to do so.
“If someone is on the fence to get their shot and is considering not doing it, it’s like a law enforcement officer wearing only a bulletproof vest on half of their chest,” Davidson said of the accidental abandonment of COVID. -19. “You may be lucky, but you may not. It’s a deadly decision. ‘
Dr. Michael Kacka, a medical adviser to DHEC, took a different approach, appealing to people’s desire to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror.
“I’m ready to get everything back to normal and really our only way to get things back to normal is for people to choose to get vaccinated,” he said. “Not only will it give you that protection against COVID-19, but it will eventually return us to a more normal life that I think we are all ready now.”
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