Governor’s office to withhold vaccines from five counties next week

The governor’s office will be withholding COVID-19 vaccinations from five Iowa counties in the next week. In a call with media outlets, the Iowa Department of Public Health Director Kelly Garcia said each county is required to distribute 80% of their allotted COVID-19 vaccines each week according to their population size. If they do not administer 80% of vaccines, the county will not receive their next week’s allocation of vaccines. Garcia told news outlets that five counties will not be receiving their next COVID-19 vaccinations next week, but refused to identify the counties. KCRG was able to identify the counties as Washington, Chickasaw, Hancock, Poweshiek and Buchanan. The county health departments told KCRG that it’s leading to a series of concerns around vaccination plans. However, the governor’s office said it would reconsider restricting the vaccines if the five counties could hit the 80% goal by the end of Friday. The IDPH wrote KCRG that the “pause in allocation will allow each county to focus on administering the several hundred unused doses they have on hand during that time.”