The Alabama National Guard has been commissioned by Governor Kay Ivey to help bring COVID-19 vaccines to rural areas of Alabama that lack medical providers.
Two teams of around 55 Guard members will make up each unit. The units will be tasked with distributing 1,000 vaccine doses per day at a given site, which the unit will occupy from Monday through Thursday.
“As we continue ramping up our vaccine distribution efforts, the guardsmen will play a critical role in reaching folks in rural areas of Alabama. We want to use every tool in our toolkit so that we can get COVID-19 behind us once and for all,” said Ivey in a statement.
The mobile units will visit sites in 24 counties that they will rotate among each week. Per the governor’s office, the units will go into action on March 23.
Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) employees and local officials in the rural counties are coordinating with the Guard on the best locations to deploy the mobile clinics.
More exact details on the hours the mobile clinics will be in operation, how to sign up for a dose and specifics on which vaccine product will be administered were not made available.
The governor’s office promised more information would be made public as soon as plans were finalized.
Ivey remarked that her administration is “working to get our hands on more supplies from the federal government,” and told the public, “Folks, we can have hope, because, finally, we can see the end of COVID-19.”
Henry Thornton is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him by email: henry@new-yhn.local or on Twitter @HenryThornton95.
