The state health department has opened its COVID-19 vaccination portal for pre-registration.
The online portal is at vaccinate.oklahoma.gov. It is open for anyone to enter their information to determine when they may be eligible for a vaccine, but right now, only health care workers, first responders and Oklahomans 65 or older will be able to schedule an appointment starting Thursday.
State Deputy Health Commissioner Keith Reed said moving forward, a lot depends on weekly vaccine allocations and how many people sign up. We need to just be clear on this moving forward: This is going to be a very difficult process and it’s going to be a long process and there’s going to be a lot of challenges, Reed said during a vaccine update earlier this week.
OKLAHOMA CITY An Ardmore, Oklahoma-based agricultural research organization announced Monday it will donate 11 ultra-cold freezers to the state that health officials say will help expedite the distribution of coronavirus vaccines. Oklahoma Deputy Health Commissioner Keith Reed said the freezers, donated by the Noble Research Institute, will allow more Oklahomans to receive the vaccine at their local healthcare providers, limiting the amount of travel people must do during the pandemic. The Pfizer vaccine must be shipped and stored at ultra-cold temperatures. “These storage units are a
Vaccine freezer, Christmas cheer, Iditarod trail switch: News from around our 50 states
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December 23, 2020, 9:03 PM·43 min read
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Alabama
Opelika: At East Alabama Medical Center, located about 60 miles northeast of Montgomery, nurses and doctors who have spent months caring for the ill, are doing what they can to get through the holiday season, which many fear will only spread the disease and add to the U.S. death toll that has surpassed 300,000. That means staff members can hang decorations on patients’ doors in the ICU but cannot attend after-work Christmas parties. A cheerful Santa doll stands atop the desk at a nursing station, but big gatherings with relatives are out. A nurse for five years, Nurse Carla Fallin said Christmas just doesn’t feel right this year. She and her husband did not take their two young sons to local Christmas events that drew hundreds of people, many without masks. The decorations in the ICU help lighten the mental load a lit
Credit Moderna
Doses of the second COVID-19 vaccine to be approved are now being distributed across Oklahoma.
The state received 66,200 doses of the Moderna vaccine on Monday. It doesn’t need to be kept nearly as cold during shipping as the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that arrived last week, and Moderna says it will remain stable at standard refrigerator temperatures up to 30 days.
Oklahoma Deputy Health Commissioner Keith Reed said that changes distribution plans a little bit. We’re going to send the Moderna vaccine pretty much all across the state to our county health department sites so that they can kind of serve as that hub and spoke for pushing Moderna out. You’re probably looking at in excess of 30 sites that are going to receive Moderna direct, Reed said.