MOULTRIE, Ga. — Colquitt Regional Medical Center has stopped administering first-dose vaccines against COVID-19, instead reserving what inventory it has to make sure it can give the second dose to people who have already started the two-shot regimen.

Colquitt Regional President and CEO Jim Matney told community leaders Wednesday on a Zoom call that hospitals across the region are making the same decision.

“Most hospitals … have enough doses to finish the second dose,” he said, “but we have no promise from the state to receive more doses.”

He said he believes this pause will last about two weeks, but the actual timing will depend on deliveries of the vaccine from the state government.

Currently the only people who qualify to receive the vaccine are health care workers, residents of long-term care facilities, police and firefighters, people over the age of 65 and the caregivers of elderly people.

Matney said if anyone in those groups wants to get the vaccine but hasn’t already received the first dose, he or she should call the Colquitt County Health Department, which has a larger supply than the hospital. Anyone who’s received the first dose from the hospital should receive a call from Colquitt Regional when it’s time for the second dose, he said.

The shortage of vaccine can be blamed on at least two factors. First, the state isn’t receiving as many doses as it needs from the federal government, and second, more doses are being directed to North Georgia, where caseloads and hospitalizations are worse.

Gov. Brian Kemp’s office announced Tuesday night that the Biden administration will increase Georgia’s allocation by roughly 25,000 doses per week to 145,900, but even that is far less than what the state’s 11 million people will need to quickly combat the virus.

“Although we still expect demand to far exceed supply for the foreseeable future, this is no doubt welcome news, and we will work around the clock to get these vaccines distributed and safely administered as quickly as possible,” Kemp said in a statement Tuesday night.

As of Monday, nearly 714,000 vaccines had been administered to the initial round of Georgians eligible to receive them, said state Public Health Director Dr. Kathleen Toomey. Health departments across the state have enough vaccines to schedule second doses for people who have received their first, she said. 

More than 99% of the state’s nursing homes have also been supplied vaccines through a federal partnership with CVS and Walgreens pharmacies, Kemp said. He has set a goal to vaccinate all of Georgia’s nursing home residents and staff by the end of this month.

Meanwhile, Matney said in Wednesday’s Zoom call, hospitalization rates in the Atlanta area are much higher than here.

The Georgia Department of Public Health’s website at https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report shows Colquitt County with 2,889 cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic — 161 of those came in the last two weeks. By contrast, Fulton County has had 66,611 cases — 7,412 in the last two weeks. Fulton County is far more populous than Colquitt County, but even allowing for the difference, Fulton has about double the rate of infection as Colquitt County, according to DPH data. 

During the local Zoom call on Wednesday, Tommie Beth Willis, president of the Moultrie-Colquitt County Chamber of Commerce, said a local farming operation had asked when its 30-person staff might get vaccines; farmers are considered essential workers. Barbara Grogan, executive director of the Moultrie-Colquitt County Development Authority, raised a similar question about local industries where workers operate in close proximity to one another.

Matney was not optimistic. He said essential workers outside the health care and emergency response areas are in the next phase of vaccinations, Phase 1B, but with the slow rollout to Phase 1A, he expects it to be quite some time before the next phase starts.

“I don’t believe given the inventory of vaccine that 1B will be any time soon,” he said. “I don’t know that officially.”

One piece of good news Matney shared was a third vaccine on the horizon. Currently the only vaccines that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration are from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Each of them requires two doses administered three to four weeks apart, but both have shown a 95% success rate in testing.

Matney said another vaccine is being considered for approval. He didn’t say what company produces it — several other companies are working on COVID vaccines — but he did say it will require only one dose. Testing shows its success rate to be 87%, he said.

“Is 87 better than 95? No,” he said, “but 87 is better than the flu vaccine.”

Also during Wednesday’s call:

• Matney encouraged the chamber of commerce to lead efforts to show health care workers they’re appreciated. He said such workers are in great demand everywhere. Some nurses are being lured away to jobs paying $45 per hour or more, he said. He suggested local businesses offer discounts to health care workers, as many do for military or law enforcement personnel. Willis said there have been discussions among the business community about how to show appreciation, but local businesses are struggling in the economic environment that COVID has created; many business owners are not receptive to offering discounts right now, she said.

• Colquitt County School Superintendent Doug Howell said the school system’s pause in in-person classes has gone well. Schools closed Friday and students began online learning Monday because more than 100 of the system’s staff were quarantined due to exposure to the coronavirus. When the schools closed, the system said it planned to reopen for in-person classes Monday, Feb. 1; Howell said Wednesday that an official decision on when to reopen will be made Friday.

• Caroline Horne, executive director of the United Way of Colquitt County, said Southwest Georgia Community Action Council and the United Way each have money available for various kinds of assistance, such as housing, food or heating bills. None of that includes allocations from the most recent stimulus bill approved by Congress; she said officials don’t know yet how that stimulus will affect local nonprofits.

• Horne also noted the moratorium on evictions will expire Jan. 31. The state Department of Community Affairs wants to extend it through the end of March, but President Joe Biden has called for it to extend through the end of September.

• Holly Phillips, director of the Moultrie-Colquitt County Library System, said the library remains closed to the public after a staffer was diagnosed with COVID-19, but it is operating on the curbside pickup model it started when the pandemic began. Materials may be checked out online and staff will deliver them to your car in the parking lot. Also, she said, the library’s wifi is operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so anyone who needs internet access can get it from the library’s parking lot or along Fifth Street Southeast in front of the building. New equipment will soon allow the library to extend the wifi range, she said.

Capitol Beat News Service contributed to this report.