The COVID-19 vaccination program is underway in the Three Rivers Health District, but Phase 1b isn’t going as quickly as some people had hoped.

Doses are coming into the district on a weekly basis, said Dr. Richard Williams, director of Three Rivers Health District, but they’re being administered just about as quickly as they arrive.

Williams said the problem is not manpower or logistics. It’s the severe national vaccine shortage. With the cooperative relationship that’s been developed among area hospital systems, physician practices, pharmacies, free clinics, and EMS personnel, the district has the manpower to administer four times as many doses of the vaccine as it’s receiving, he said. But because of the shortage, “it will be many weeks before everyone currently eligible and signed up can get an appointment.”

One complicating factor, said Williams, is the two-dose requirement for the vaccine. A COVID-19 clinic can’t be run like a flu clinic, he said, because it’s not a mat...