OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Vaccinations appear to be going smoothly in Douglas County.
Just last week, the county, along with pharmacies and federal health centers, vaccinated over 42,000 people.
In total, over 144,000 doses have gone out to residents, with almost 90,000 people getting at least one dose.
“That’s one of five of those that are eligible to receive doses,” said Dr. Adi Pour, Douglas County Health Director.
The county is quickly getting through vaccinating those 65 and older, and will soon move to vaccinating more educators, funeral home workers, as well as meatpacking and grocery workers.
“So we are switching to critical infrastructure,” said Pour.
The country will likely finish up vaccinating those 65 and older and other essential workers sometime by the end of the month. And from there, sometime at the beginning of April, they’ll begin the next people in line which includes ages 50-64 and others with underlying health conditions.
“So April 1, I hope we can open it up to those 50-64 year olds,” said Pour.
One place where the county is lacking is vaccinating minorities, with less than seven percent of African-Americans and less than five percent of Hispanics getting vaccinated.
That’s below their percentage of the total population in the county.
“We still have to really reach out to our minority population,” said Pour.
And while several Douglas County residents have come down with both the UK and California variants, so far, none of them have been hospitalized.
“We are not seeing it at the time but people are very interested to really test all of those of individuals that are hospitalized to see if we see a variant,” said Pour.
