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Gov. Kemp tours new Delta mass vaccination site, gives update on next phase

ATLANTA — Governor Brian Kemp toured the mass vaccination site at the Delta Flight Museum, one of the four new sites that opened this week.

The governor also spoke about when teachers and others outside the current phase groups can get vaccinated.

Channel 2 Action News exclusively reported on Tuesday that Kemp is expected to make an official announcement in the coming days, and the expansion will go beyond the current 65-year-old age limit to include more vulnerable Georgians.

Kemp told Channel 2′s Tom Regan that the plan is still in the works and didn’t give an exact timetable yet.

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Meanwhile, Kemp called the Delta Air Museum vaccination site another great partnership forged in the effort to stamp out COVID-19.

“We are moving the needle and we are going to continue moving it with everything we got,” Kemp said.

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Delta CEO Ed Bastian accompanied Kemp on his tour of the site Wednesday.

Bastian told Regan with more vaccine and growing herd immunity, he believes people will return to the air in droves. He hopes the airline will have a profitable summer after losing $12 billion last year.

“Seeing people getting vaccinated and protected from the worst disease we have seen in a century and being able to do that in our home, supporting the state is a thrill for us,” Bastian said.

The vaccination site at the museum is averaging about 1,100 vaccines a day and they will have 2,000 more to deliver.

“Yesterday we bumped our allocation here because Albany didn’t have the turnout and as I said before were are more worried about shots in arm than in the garbage,” GEMA director James Stallings said.

The governor said he still doesn’t know yet how much of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be allocated to the state once it’s approved, but the state is ready.

“I believe we can ramp up the sites. We can have more mobile vans,” Kemp said. “Hopefully that day is coming but it’s not here now.”

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