Experts: Georgia Vaccine Woes At Least Partly Self-Inflicted

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March 16th, 2021

A member of the Georgia National Guard helps manage traffic Feb. 22 at a COVID-19 mass vaccination site at the Delta Flight Museum in Atlanta. Sara McCool, a professor in public health at Georgia State University, said Georgia was slow to open mass vaccination sites, particularly in the Atlanta area, where much of the state’s population resides.

John Bazemore / Associated Press

Georgia’s failure to open mass vaccination sites earlier and relatively slow expansion of eligibility for the shots are to blame in part for the state’s dismal COVID-19 inoculation rate, health experts say.

Georgia ranks last among states in the percentage of its adult population that has received at least one dose, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Roughly a third of the doses delivered to the state are still awaiting injection.

For weeks after the vaccine became available, Georgia officials blamed limited supply in part for the state’s numbers. But lack of supply has not been the problem for some time now, as evidenced by the amount of vaccine sitting unused in the state, said Sara McCool, a professor in public health at Georgia State University.

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