Tennessee officials discuss initial COVID-19 vaccine plan

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Tennessee Department of Health hosted a background briefing on Wednesday.

The briefing was about the COVID-19 vaccine and who will be eligible to receive it first.

Tennessee will get 2% of the vaccine when it is allocated nationally. First priorities of the vaccine are first responders, prisons, nursing homes and anywhere else where there are higher COVID-19 exposures.

“We also know that those individuals who have better immunity are the ones that are critically ill, and we don’t know what that would look like if they then got infected with this virus again. So we will administer that vaccine regardless of prior history of COVID-19,” Michelle Fiscus, Tennessee Immunization Medical Director, said.

Fiscus says Tennessee should have enough vaccines for everyone who wants one by mid-2021.