Gov. Cooper says NC is ‘ready’ to have all adults eligible for COVID vaccine by May 1
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said Wednesday he’s optimistic that all adults in the state will be eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine by May 1, the deadline set by President Joe Biden last week.
Biden said late last week that all states should have the vaccine be available to all adults by that date.
“North Carolina will be ready to meet this challenge,” Cooper said at a news conference.
The state moved to Group 4 of the vaccination distribution on Wednesday, starting with people who have medical conditions that make them at higher risk of COVID-19 complications and people who live in close settings. The rest of Group 4, which includes essential employees not already vaccinated, is set to start on April 7.
Dr. Mandy Cohen, Secretary of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, said the state is projected to see an increase in its weekly vaccine supply due to distribution of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was approved for emergency use earlier in March.
North Carolina received a shipment of about 80,000 doses of the J&J vaccine earlier this month. Cohen said the state is projected to receive regular weekly shipments of the vaccine the last week of March or the first week in April.
Cohen said this would increase overall weekly shipments of the vaccine from about 240,000 to 350,000 doses, which would put the state on track to meet Biden’s goal.
As of Wednesday, more than 1.3 million people in North Carolina have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. That’s 12.9% of the population and 16.5% of the adult population in North Carolina.
The state has been offering vaccines since the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were first approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration in mid-December.
As more North Carolinians will become eligible for the vaccine over the next several weeks, Cooper said it is important to reach out to those who are concerned the vaccine is not safe. Doing so will help reach herd immunity.
“We still know that there’s a lot of hesitancy out there across the board,” Cooper said.
“We’re going to be working extraordinarily hard to convince people that this is important to do,” Cooper said. “We’re going to really be working to try to get a greater percentage of the population vaccinated.”
State reopening status
The news conference came as the state passed a year under a state of emergency and the governor has issued a slew of executive orders that put limitations on where people go and the size of gatherings. The current order is set to expire March 26.
In that year, NC DHHS has reported nearly 900,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 statewide. Of those, 1,999 were reported Wednesday.
Cooper said his administration expects to ease more restrictions next week when the current order expires, but would not identify which restrictions.
The governor has stopped short of saying there is a vaccination rate benchmark connected to reopening, but that it is a factor.
“As more people are vaccinated, that does figure into what we are doing,” Cooper said.
In February, Cooper lifted the curfew, allowed bars to reopen indoors with limited capacity and raised capacity limits for sports and other gatherings.
“More and more people are getting back out and doing things,” Cooper said, and urged North Carolinians to still be careful and responsible, and to continue to wear a mask. The state is still under a mask mandate.
“The more people we get vaccinated the better we’re going to be,” he said.
Earlier this month, Cooper and lawmakers reached an agreement on how to reopen school districts statewide. All elementary schools must now offer an option of full-time, daily in-person instruction. School districts can decide between Plan A or Plan B, which includes six feet of social distancing, for middle and high schools. Previously, not all school systems offered in-person education this school year.
The Republican-led General Assembly moved a bill through committee on Tuesday that would require the governor to seek agreement from the rest of the Council of State for state of emergency declarations that last more than 30 days.
The Council of State includes the governor and nine other statewide elected officials including, the agriculture commissioner, attorney general and treasurer. The current makeup of the council is 6-4 Republican majority. Cooper is a Democrat. Other state legislatures around the country have also pushed back on governor powers during the pandemic.
This story was originally published March 17, 2021 at 2:19 PM.
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