Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The Distribution Task Force has identified four sites that will be used for administering the COVID-19 vaccine, once the vaccination moves to the general public and the Health Department plans to announce when that will occur.

Additionally, individuals interested in getting the vaccine are advised to register on the electronic health record system by confirming your name, date of birth and hospital number, according to the Health Department, which requests that the public contact LBJ Medical Center records to confirm your information. This record is not online, you must contact the LBJ Medical Center records office.

The first shipment of the COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by Pfizer Inc, arrived last Saturday and the territory officially rolled out the First-Tier of vaccinations for healthcare workers and first responders at DoH and LBJ the following day.

Also included in this first round, were patients and escorts and non-patients, confirmed for next month’s charter flight to Honolulu, along with Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga — who got his dose at LBJ.

According to health officials about 130 individuals received the vaccine last Sunday and the vaccinations continued yesterday for the First-Tier, as well as those confirmed for the medical charter, which is now scheduled for Jan. 12th.

No timeframe is known to when DoH and LBJ will complete the vaccination process for healthcare workers and first responders — whose vaccinations are administered at the DoH Tafuna Health Center. Vaccinations for first-responders are spread-out over the week.

At last week’s cabinet meeting the Vaccine Distribution Task Force made a presentation, in which DoH Senior Epidemiologist, Dr. Aifili John Tufa, discussed, among other things, priority of getting the vaccine under a Tier set-up starting with Tier-One, with healthcare workers and first responders, under Subtier A, followed by Subtier B, which covers non-medical essential personnel — such as housekeeping and maintenance — and critical infrastructure personnel — such as those at the airport and seaport workers; American Samoa Power Authority, Stevedoring companies, Port security, StarKist, American Samoa TeleCommunications Authority and American Samoa Environmental Protection Agency.

Once Sub-tiers A & B are completed, the next group is Sub-tier C —  adults who are 65 years and older with at least one high-risk or chronic condition. “We all know it’s the only population hit hard with the virus,” Dr. Tufa explained. “We want to make sure they are protected especially if you have a chronic disease.”

He also said that the task force wants to focus on the rest of the population that is younger than 65 years old, who might have a few chronic illness. For this group, under Sub-tier D, are those between 16-years old and 65-years old with at least two high-risk health conditions.

After Sub-tier D, the vaccination plan moves to Tier Two, starting with Sub tier A, focusing on all healthy people 65 years old and older with no chronic health conditions “but we still want to protect you” as well as “some of our population younger than 65 with at least one condition.”

“We have our government leaders” for vaccination on this sub-tier group, according to Dr. Tufa, who further explained that Sub-tier B — under Tier Two — follows vaccination of other government and business workers.  And once all of these sub-tiers are completed, vaccinations will be offered to the rest of the population.

Because of the limited number of doses sent, the task force didn’t provide a time frame of when each sub-tier group would be completed before moving on to the next group. But DoH plans to advise the public.

Dr. Tufa informed the cabinet meeting that a lot of people have asked if they are required to take the vaccine. “According to our law, we cannot force anybody to get a vaccine. We’re going to be offering the vaccine under a informed-consent, that you will sign [showing] that you do agree to take the vaccine,” he said.

The meeting was also informed that “when you get your first dose, you will get a vaccination card to show you when to return for your second dose of the Pfizer vaccine” and this card is needed when you show up for the second dose.

Dr. Tufa said that if you get the Pfizer vaccine for the first dose, the second one will also be the Pfizer vaccine. And this is the same, if the first dose is the Moderna vaccine — the second one is Moderna.

During a news conference last week, Health director Motusa Tuileama Nua said the task force has identified four sites or locations for the general publication to receive the vaccination — for those who register to get it.

The four sites are: DoH’s Fagaalu Clinic, Gov. Rex Lee Auditorium, Tafuna Health Center and the DoH office at the Ottoville professional building. Motusa also explained that whichever location the person gets the first dose, it’s also the same location to get the second dose.

DoH will issue an official announcement for when the public gets to receive the vaccine.

“Because there are pre-identified groups for receiving the vaccine, we will communicate with you regularly as we get more information about the availability for designated groups,” according to a DoH announcement last week and also urged those interested in getting the vaccine to register on the electronic healthcare record system at LBJ Hospital.

For more information about the vaccine call 219 or email - vaccine@doh.as