Tennessee Department of Health revises vaccine plan, recognizes virus variant

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — State health leaders provided an updated on the vaccination plan.

The Tennessee Department of Health revised their plan, as well as recognized the new COVID-19 variant B117.

“We have identified the B117 variant in Tennessee. If you are wondering why we haven’t made a big deal about this, [it] is because we don’t really think it’s that big of a deal,” said Tennessee Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey.

Piercey says this mutation is much more transmissible than the current strain, but it does not appear to cause any increase severity of symptoms or death.

This variant is expected to be the predominant strain in the state starting in March.

“This is what viruses do. Viruses mutate, they change. They have little spin off siblings and cousins. They do whatever they can to try to find susceptible hosts,” Piercey said.

Piercey said the state is almost complete with first doses of all of nursing home vaccinations.

“We continue to do well here in Tennessee. I know many of you are tracking our progress compared to our peer states,” she said.

Piercey also said that since December, almost half a million Tennesseans have been vaccinated. She says the health department is now moving forward with vaccinating medically fragile children.

“We have now included household residents of medically fragile children in phase 1c. That is the group where all of our high-risk medical conditions are,” Piercey said.

Correctional officers and jail inmates have also been moved to phase 1a1.

“They are in very close contact, sometimes full body contact, with members of the public who are incarcerated and they are in confined spaces,” Piercey said.

Piercey says this plan does not include vaccinating prisons just yet due to a higher need in jails.

“They are interacting with members of the public who are coming in and out of that situation, sometimes frequently,” Piercey said.

There is also an updated timeline to when and what age brackets will receive the vaccine based on priority age based risk.

Piercey wanted to point out that the timelines are just projections and could change at any moment.

For more information on COVID-19, go to the CDC website, the Tennessee Department of Health website or call (877) 857-2945.

For more information on COVID-19 vaccinations in Tennessee, click here.