The long-awaited COVID-19 vaccine doses have begun rolling out in the region, but like throughout the country, the process hasn’t been without issues. Questions about supplies, allocations and meeting demand abound.

To help shed some light on how it’s working locally and what to expect next, several health experts joined the Wilmington BizTalk panel talk Thursday:

• David Howard, New Hanover County interim health director
• Cris Harrelson, Brunswick County health director
• Jeff James, Wilmington Health CEO
• Claire Corbett, NHRMC’s director of clinical excellence

"Collectively across all providers in New Hanover County, we are rapidly approaching -- if we haven't yet reached that -- a number of first-dose vaccinations right around 10% of our population," Howard said. "I think that's a great accomplishment in relatively a few short weeks, with two of those weeks occurring or holidays. If you remember we received vaccines in mid- and late-December."

The panelists also shared information on plans for vaccine doses to be shipped directly to Walgreens in North Carolina starting next week, talks with the state about allocating more doses to counties with higher senior populations like Brunswick, what's known -- and not known -- so far about transmission after people are vaccinated and more.

View the full conversation below. Also listen to this and future weekly WilmingtonBiz Talk discussions on the Business Journal's new podcast, available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.



BizTalk is livestreamed on the Business Journal's Facebook page each week at noon Thursday. For notifications on upcoming topics, sign up for newsletters at wilmingtonbiz.com/register and to submit topic or speaker ideas, email [email protected].