Vaccines roll out at Miss. long-term care facilities

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - CVS Pharmacy will begin rolling out Pfizer vaccines Monday in Mississippi.

CVS Health will be at 211 nursing and assisted living facilities across the state, including the metro area, the retailer said.

As of December 27, 2020, the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) reports 235 current outbreaks in long-term care facilities.

For the privacy of patients who will be receiving the vaccine, the company did not release a full list of participating facilities but did say they plan to have teams across the state over the next 12 weeks.

“The eventual availability of COVID-19 vaccines in communities across the country will bring us one step closer to overcoming the most significant health challenge of our lifetime,” said Karen Lynch, CVS executive vice president.

Here’s an overview of all phases of vaccinations by MSDH:

• Phase 1a: Front-line health care workers, including first responders, pharmacists, and the national guard (90,000 doses estimated)
• Phase 1b: long-term and home care residents and staff (55,000 doses)
• Phase 2: those over the age of 65; essential workers, including workers in education, public health, dentistry, funeral homes, transportation, postal workers, grocery stores, meatpacking; homeless people; people with obesity, heart disease, CPOD, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, asthma; and people incarcerated in prisons and jails (2.7 million)
• Phase 3: general public (200,000 doses)

The vaccine is not available to the public yet.

CVS is only helping MSDH vaccinate people who are in phase one.

No word yet on when phase two begins.

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