-
Sunshot by Drew Dotson - Hart County resident Doris Mahannah, who is 104 years old, gets her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, at Flat Shoals Baptist Church in Bowersville.
The vaccine clinic at Flat Shoals Baptist Church is rolling out vaccines for senior citizens, including 104-year-old Doris Mahannah.
The goal is for the clinic to administer 100 vaccines per day, according to Hart County administrator Terrell Partain.
“I haven’t heard any complaints out of the public or the health department,” Partain said about the clinic so far.
Mahannah, who is turning 105 in June, was at the clinic to receive her second dose of the vaccine on Tuesday. She contracted the Spanish Flu as a child, a deadly influenza that infected roughly 500 million people in four waves from 1918 to 1920, and wanted to protect herself during this pandemic.
“I didn’t want to get the virus,” Mahannah said. “I was hoping this would take care of it.”
The Hart County Health Department has been administering vaccines at the clinic Monday through Thursday since Feb. 16, according to Partain. People seeking appointments can go to District 2 Public Health’s website at phdistrict2.org, or call 1-888-426-5073. To schedule an appointment, patients must meet the tier 1A requirements, which includes being 65 years old or older.
A total of 3,927 vaccines have been administered in Hart County as of Tuesday, Feb. 23. That broke down into 2,915 first doses given and 1,012 second doses. The vaccination rate in Hart County is 15,229 per 100,000 people.
Hart County added another death due to COVID in the past week and now sits at 35, with 15 additional deaths considered “probable” COVID-19 deaths. The DPH reports 109 people total have been hospitalized in Hart County due to the virus.
There were 13 active cases in the county on Tuesday, according to Partain.
Hart County has had 41 new cases in the last two weeks. The 14-day testing percent positivity rate, which the DPH says can indicate the level of community spread, was at 10.3 percent in Hart County as of Tuesday which is a nearly 10 percent decrease from last week.
Statewide, there is a new website where people can preregister for vaccine appointments and four mass vaccination sites have opened.
That news was released by Gov. Brian Kemp as more than 1.6 million vaccines have been given to eligible Georgians so far, including roughly 500,000 second doses, according to state Department of Public Health data as of last week.
The new website, myvaccinegeorgia.com, allows Georgians to pre-register for a vaccine appointment even if they do not yet qualify under the governor’s eligibility criteria. They will be notified once they qualify and scheduled for an appointment.
Kemp said on Thursday he is not yet ready to expand who is eligible in Georgia for the vaccine beyond health-care workers, nursing home residents and staff, first responders and people age 65 and older – but that he may do so in the next couple of weeks.
The four mass vaccination sites in metro Atlanta, Clarkesville, Macon and Albany will open Monday and initially administer around 22,000 vaccines per week between them, Kemp said. Those sites can gear up quickly to handle more doses once the federal government allocates more weekly shipments, he added.
The four mass-vaccination sites will be open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the following locations:
• Delta Flight Museum: 1220 Woolman Place SW, Hapeville, GA 30354
• Habersham County Fairgrounds: 4235 Toccoa Highway, Clarkesville, GA 30523
• Macon Farmers Market: 2055 Eisenhower Parkway, Macon, GA 31206
• Albany branch of the Georgia Forestry Commission: 2910 Newton Road, Albany, GA 31701
“These four sites will serve as the first step in a vaccination effort that we hope will dramatically ramp up in the coming months,” Kemp said at a news conference at the state Capitol.
Georgia is currently receiving shipments of 198,000 vaccine doses per week, up from 120,000 doses the state had been getting in recent weeks. While officials have made a dent in vaccinating people, Kemp stressed demand for shots still lags far behind the state’s current and foreseeable supply.
The supply limits have kept Kemp from adding Georgia school teachers and other staff to the list of vaccine-eligible people, despite loud cries from many teachers particularly in metro Atlanta who have pressed the governor to move them up the line.
On Thursday, Kemp detailed results from a survey he said the state Department of Education recently conducted showing less than half of about 171,000 responding teachers and school staff would not take the vaccine. The governor said the survey will influence when he opens vaccines up for teachersaa.
Dave Williams of Capitol Beat News Service contributed to this report.