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Oklahoma’s Plan For Urban Mass Vaccination PODS Falls Through

A nurse draws Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine into a syringe Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City.
Sue Ogrocki
/
AP
A nurse draws Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine into a syringe Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, at Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma’s plan for urban mass vaccination sites has fallen through.

Officials have been using the phrase POD — or points of dispensing. Health officials from Oklahoma City and Tulsa’s independent health departments announced last week the creation of so-called mega-PODS. Those would use a separate federal stream of vaccine supply to administer 6,000 shots a day in each city.

Deputy Commissioner of Health Keith Reed announced Tuesday the federal government went back on the new vaccine distribution stream, and that state supply wouldn’t cut it. He said he’d been skeptical because of similar events under the last administration, and because it contradicted what officials knew about current production levels.

"Is it frustrating? Oh, absolutely, because even though I'm a little bit skeptical, there's still a great deal of hope," said Reed.

Reed said that as state allocation grows, officials could create mega-PODs later.

Catherine Sweeney grew up in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and attended Oklahoma State University. She has covered local, state and federal government for outlets in Oklahoma, Colorado and Washington, D.C.
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