Vaccination efforts begin new phase
Students 12 and up, in all three Anderson County school districts started receiving COVID-19 vaccines last week.
Anderson County Health Department Director Charles Turner updated Anderson County commissioners Monday night during the body’s monthly meeting, focusing mostly on the COVID-19 vaccination progress within the county.
Turner said the school systems “became providers of the vaccine,” and the Health Department assisted in administering them, as well as updating the Tennessee Immunization Registry System.
He said the Anderson County and Oak Ridge systems received vaccinations at one central location for each, while Clinton City Schools vaccines were administered at the Health Department in a drive-thru event.
“Clinton City Schools have fewer students, so we did it that way,” he said.
Turner reported statewide figures showing 4,612,461 Tennesseans have been vaccinated with at least one shot of the two-shot vaccine — 37.4-percent.
The number of Tennesseans who have received a second shot and are fully vaccinated is a little lower — 31.5-percent.
Turner said Anderson County’s percentages are above the state average, with 41.18-percent of Anderson countians receiving at least one shot, while 35.72-percent have received two shots.
Turner said the number of those receiving a second dose of a vaccine may be slightly higher because of a glitch in the recording of data.
“We’re working diligently to correct that,” he said.
That includes calling those who have had one shot, but their second shot has not been recorded.
Turner said that in most cases, those second shots have been received, but they have just not been recorded yet.
In all, 58,186 Anderson countians have been vaccinated, and 91.9-percent of those have received the second dose of their vaccines.
Turner said state figures break down the county’s 58,186 vaccinations as follows:
• 81-plus years of age: 72.8-percent;
• 71-80: 83.8-percent;
• 61-70: 69.3-percent;
• 51-60: 53.1-percent;
• 41-50: 41.2-percent;
• 31-4: 36.9-percent;
• 20-30: 28.9-percent;
• 16-20: 25.5-percent.
“Anderson County’s (percentage) is quite significantly larger than the state of Tennessee’s as a whole,” he said.
Turner said the demand for the vaccinations has started to drop, but that is the case nationwide.
He noted the Health Department is working with outside groups to organize vaccination clinics and events.
Anderson County has had 8,810 cases of COVID-19 reported. There have been 171 deaths due to COVID-19 reported in the county, and 221 hospitalizations. There are 8,578 inactive, or recovered, cases in the county.
Turner said that there have been 63 new cases since last Friday (May 14).
He said the county had a 3.5-percent “positivity rate” in the past seven days, as of Monday.