This week, North Carolina is getting its first shipment of a new COVID-19 vaccine — the CDC-authorized, single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccination. The state has also announced significant changes to its vaccine waitlist, with new categories becoming eligible for the shot as early as Wednesday.
In all, more than 1.5 million North Carolinians have gotten at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. As the rollout continues, WUNC reporter Will Michaels and digital producer Laura Pellicer tackle some top questions about this phase of vaccinations in North Carolina.
What's the latest update to NC's COVID vaccine waitlist?
All of Group 3 in North Carolina's vaccine priority list are now eligible to get the vaccine. This includes meatpacking workers, US Postal Service workers, grocery store workers, public transit workers, clergy, security officers, first responders, and the list goes on. Group 3 originally encompassed only childcare workers and K-12 teachers and staff. That was about 240,000 people in and of itself.
Which vaccines are now available in the state?
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines — which both require two doses — have been available in North Carolina since December. The new Johnson & Johnson vaccine is fully authorized by the CDC and North Carolina is getting its first approximately 80,000-dose shipment this week. J&J is a single-dose shot and doesn't need extreme cold storage. That makes it more cost effective to transport and store. You also don't have the same kind of pressure to use the vaccine in a short timespan as with the Pfizer and Moderna shots.
How can I find my position in the vaccine rollout?
A few months ago, North Carolinians had few resources to find out where they stood in the vaccine waitlist. The state has since set up a few helpful tools. Two websites to highlight are findmygroup.nc.gov where you'll find a simple questionnaire to help you figure out your vaccine priority group, and yourspotyourshot.nc.gov which is a more general resource where you can find out more about the vaccines in general or track down a local vaccine provider.
How do different counties compare when it comes to vaccinating local communities?
North Carolina counties haven't been able to vaccinate people at the same pace. We see bigger counties like Wake or Durham that are near or even below the state average for the number of vaccines they're getting out. Meanwhile some rural counties are performing much better — places like Hyde County, which has already actually vaccinated more than 20% of its entire population.
There's also a sort of circular process in distributing the vaccine at the local level. The federal government distributes vaccines to states based on how quickly they can get last week's doses out. The state then allocates those doses to each county and each local health provider based on how quickly they were getting last week's doses out. So it makes it tough for some local health providers like Durham County to set up large scale vaccination sites, because they're actually not getting enough doses to set up a large scale vaccination site. And they can't get more doses to set up that large vaccination site until they prove that they can get those lower numbers of doses out more quickly.
How does North Carolina compare with other states when it comes to tackling COVID-19?
At this point, 15% of North Carolinians have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. That puts us in the 27th position for state vaccination rates per capita, based on tabulated data from NPR.
What's important to keep in mind is that as the vaccinations are underway, North Carolina has the 12th highest number of new cases per capita over the past seven days. Wednesday also marks one year since the state health department reported the first case of COVID-19. It's a grim anniversary for North Carolina, with more than 860,000 confirmed cases and more than 11,000 deaths.
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