This week, Georgia rolled out a COVID-19 vaccination registration website, as the state gears up to begin vaccinating more residents.
“COVID-19 vaccines continue to arrive in Georgia in extremely limited supply,” the site’s homepage says. “As we await additional vaccine supply from the Federal Government, we urge currently eligible Georgia residents to pre-register today.”
Georgia remains in its 1A+ group for vaccinations.
That group includes residents over 65 years of age, their caretakers, long term care facility residents and staff, healthcare workers, and first responders, including police, EMS, and firefighters.
The new website allows those who are currently not eligible to pre-register for a vaccine when it becomes available to them. Georgia residents can input their information, and request to be notified when it is their turn to receive the vaccine.
A similar website was launched in Virginia as the state moved into its second phase of vaccinations. The site was immediately flooded with users, and crashed just after going live. The Virginia Department of Health’s IT team eventually got the site working again.
Georgia has faced no such technological trouble yet.
Gov. Brian Kemp (R) is looking to roll the vaccine out to broader swaths of the population soon.
“The state and the Department of Public Health will be finalizing our plans for expanding vaccination criteria within the next two weeks,” Kemp said in a press conference.
The state is expected to deliver 200,000 jabs per week, beginning next week. That is an increase from the current 120,000 vaccinations per week.
Teachers are expected to be at the top of the list in the next group of qualified vaccine recipients.
Atlanta’s City Council adopted a resolution urging the governor to include teachers in the current 1A+ group, but Kemp said only about half of more than 170,000 teachers surveyed said they would be interested in receiving the vaccine.
“The [Georgia] Department of Education has sent out a survey to every school district across the state asking school personnel to respond to basic questions about the number of employees who would want to be vaccinated, if they would be made eligible,” Kemp said during the press conference. “That survey that included over 171,000 staff member responses shows that only 45 percent of staff in our schools would choose to be vaccinated.”
Beginning Monday, Kemp said, four mass vaccination locations will open.
They will be in Albany, Macon, Habersham County, and at the Delta Flight Museum inside the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
– – –
Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Georgia Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
