What’s happening with COVID-19 vaccines
In Alaska, health care workers and people over age 65 are currently eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Most vaccination appointments for the month of January are full, but the State of Alaska is expecting an additional supply of vaccine in February, which will allow additional opportunities for people to get vaccinated. At this point, we don’t know when the state will start making appointments available to other groups of people.
The University of Alaska incident management team, in collaboration with teams at each of the universities, continues to monitor state and federal vaccination efforts. While the university is not currently offering vaccines on its campuses, we are beginning to plan for doing so once the vaccine is more widely available. In the meantime, we encourage any eligible employees or students who want the vaccine to sign up when appointments are available in their communities.
For now, the best source of information about eligibility and available appointments and vaccination sites is the State of Alaska vaccination website at covidvax.alaska.gov.
If you have been vaccinated, it’s still important to continue to wear a mask, avoid gatherings of people outside your household, stay 6 feet away from others and wash your hands frequently. The COVID-19 vaccine is effective at preventing severe illness and hospitalization, but scientists don’t know whether or to what degree it prevents transmission of the coronavirus.