You get a COVID vaccine, you get a COVID vaccine… Everyone gets a COVID vaccine, just not quite yet. 

If Iowans are eager to get their COVID-19 vaccine they can now watch how the distribution is going online. Iowa released a new COVID-19 vaccine dashboard on their COVID-19 website. This dashboard allows you and others to know how many vaccines have been distributed in your county. 

The dashboard is laid out to show four different Iowa county maps. Each map shows additional information regarding the vaccine and counties. 

The first map shows the number of vaccine doses administered by the recipient county of residence, meaning the total number of residences in each county that has received the vaccine. The second map shows the number of vaccines each county has administered. The last two maps show the number of vaccine series that are completed by county residents and county administered.

According to the dashboard, Story County has administered 10,000 vaccines and more than 8,000 Story County residents have received the vaccine.

Steve Sullivan, director of marketing and community relations at Mary Greeley Medical Center, said the numbers are slightly different because Story County has administered vaccines to hospital staff and some might not live in Story County. 

The dashboard also shows the data of administered vaccines by race, sex, gender and ethnicity.  

At the bottom of the dashboard, there is a graph showing the administered vaccines by day of administration. 

Story County is currently administering vaccines to tier one groups, which include first responders, pre-K-12 school staff, early childhood education and day care workers. 

The County gets a weekly allocation of vaccines that are distributed by Story County Public Health, Sullivan said. 

A portion of the weekly allocations goes to the tier one groups, Iowa State University and clinics. 

A portion of the weekly allocations goes to the Story County Public Health who have been administering vaccines to the tier one group. Iowa State University also receives some of the weekly allocations that have been going to campus police. The rest of the weekly allocations go to clinics that have been working on administering vaccines to the 65 and older group. 

“The amount of vaccines we get every week… the supply does not meet the demand,” Sullivan said. 

This past week vaccines were mostly distributed to first responders and the County hopes to work on distributing to teachers this week, Sullivan said.

On Feb. 1, Story County and many other counties in Iowa began distributing to those 65 and older.

Sullivan said some people who live in Story County have gone to Polk County to get vaccines since Polk County was able to begin distributing vaccines to the 65 and older group earlier.

“Eventually, as soon as those allocations grow to better levels, we’ll be able to supply some pharmacies to help the administration process to the 65 and older group,” Sullivan said. 

It is hard to compare the vaccine distribution process in each county because each county has different positivity rates, those 65 and older and other factors, Sullivan said. 

“There’s nothing particularly uniform about the distribution but we are doing the best we can with the allocations that we receive,” Sullivan said. 

Sullivan said Story County is hoping to get through tier one and 65 and older groups by mid-March.

“Things change all the time with this so we’ll just keep adjusting based on the number of allocation we get,” Sullivan said. “Everyone is doing the best they can, but we understand how frustrating it is for folks out there, but we share in that frustration.” 

More information on the vaccine distribution can be found on the Iowa COVID-19 vaccine information dashboard.