Des Moines, Iowa — State public health officials say Iowa’s overall vaccination rate is inching up, but parts of the state are lagging behind. Seventy-one percent of Iowans over the age of 11 have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Ken Sharp of the Iowa Department of Public Health says the vaccination rate is lower among middle-aged white men and 20 to 30-year-olds in general.
Sharp says about seven-thousand Iowa kids ages 5 to 11 got their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Monday. Pfizer’s pediatric dose of the vaccine was approved last week, making more than 280-thousand Iowa kids eligible to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Officials say Iowa received 99-thousand pediatric doses of the Pfizer vaccine in its first shipment, and 24-thousand more have been ordered. Some major pharmacy chains were able to order thousands of additional doses on their own. The number of COVID patients hospitalized in Iowa and the number of Iowans testing positive for the virus has increased since last week. By the middle of THIS week, state officials had confirmed 71-hundred-66 Iowans have died of COVID since the pandemic began.
