Teachers push back, churches in court, National Guard: News from around our 50 states From USA TODAY Network and wire reports, USA TODAY
Alabama
Montgomery: The state is getting roughly half as much COVID-19 vaccine as it was expecting based on federal plans announced last year, officials said Friday, meaning it would take more than two years to vaccinate the adult population without improvement. The state has 800 approved vaccination sites and is trying to deliver shots as quickly as it can, but supply issues have been the biggest hindrance to state vaccination efforts, said Dr. Scott Harris, head of the Alabama Department of Public Health. “Every state had the idea that they were going to get much more vaccine than they ultimately got,” he said. “I assume this is related to optimistic projections and the inability of manufacturers to keep up that. … There just wasn’t enough vaccine to go around.” Alabama health officials were expecting to get more th
By Robert Nott, Santa Fe New Mexican |
January 24, 2021
Gabriela Campos/The New Mexican
Sen. Greg Baca works on a client case file as his law office in Los Lunas on Firday afternoon. Baca, a former Navy veteran, is the new Senate minority leader.
The ocean. Greg Baca had never seen anything like it.
A product of desert terrain he was born in Belen in 1971 Baca looked out over the watery expanse of the Atlantic from the deck of the USS Nimitz and saw a whole new world around him.
“It was just bigger and more beautiful than I could have imagined,” recalled the onetime machinist’s mate. “It was one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen, and I’ve seen water all over the world, from deep gray to bright blue.”
KVIA
A person gets vaccinated during a drive-thru clinic at Gadsden High School.
Editor s note: NMDOH spokesman Matt Bieber tells ABC-7 the state did not intend to open up the next category of vaccine distribution to teachers and other essential frontline workers last week when it approved mass vaccination sites for teachers. Unfortunately, a DOH employee made a mistake and gave the go-ahead for each of these events, Bieber wrote to ABC-7. Given that the groups scheduled for vaccination at these events are outside the current phase criteria, they were cancelled. The sequenced distribution plan at this time only calls for people 75 years and older, and people 16+ with chronic conditions.
Associated Press
Vaccination clinics scheduled for hundreds of public school employees throughout Albuquerque and surrounding communities won t happen after all.
New Mexico health officials say the state is focusing the current round of vaccinations on people age 75 and older and those who have underlying medical conditions that put them at risk from COVID-19.
But news of the scuttled clinics angered one state senator and left school administrators with two of the state s largest districts extremely disappointed.
Republican Sen. Craig Brandt of Rio Rancho said the Health Department s actions demonstrate a callous disregard for families and teachers in his district.
The Health Department did not immediately answer questions about why the clinics were allowed to be organized in the first place, but Health Secretary Dr. Tracie Collins on Friday again spelled out the groups of people who are eligible for shots.