TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Pima County announced Thursday that it is expanding the 1B priority COVID-19 vaccination group to people over 70-years-old.
According to a news release, people who qualify can start registering for appointments beginning Monday, Feb. 8.
For registration information, click here.
“We have made a lot of progress over the past six weeks in the 1A and 1B priority groups, vaccinating more than 130,000 people,” said Dr. Theresa Cullen, the Health Department Director. “The pace of appointments for educators and protective services has slowed as we think we’re nearing saturation of the people in those groups who want to be vaccinated, so we’re opening appointments to 70 and older.”
In addition, group 1B also includes educators and people employed in protective services.
Vaccination appointments are being held at:
- Tucson Medical Center, 5301 E. Grant Road
- Banner UA Cancer Center, 3838 N. Campbell Ave.
- Banner UMC-South at the Kino Sports Complex, 2500 E. Ajo Way
- Tucson Convention Center, 260 S. Church Ave.
Related: Pima County Health: 1B qualifiers can register for vaccination at TCC
“We're only opening vaccination to 70-plus because we still have a lot of 75+ people to vaccinate and we don’t want to overwhelm our registration system or create more demand than we have vaccine supply,” Cullen said.
According to the county, people 65 to 69 years-old could start being vaccinated at the end of Feb. depending on vaccine availability.
“Vaccine supply is the ultimate limiting factor in how many people we can get vaccinated and how quickly. We are wary of getting too far ahead of the available vaccine with our appointments,” said Dr. Francisco Garcia, the County’s Chief Medical Officer and a Deputy County Administrator. “It’s hard to estimate how fast we can move to vaccinating 65 to 69 folks because the state’s system for vaccine distribution is opaque, as evidenced by today’s announcement that the state has reduced Pima County vaccine allotment by more than 12,000 doses next week, going from 29,000 this week to only 17,800 next week.”
