NMDOH takes questions about COVID-19 during Facebook town hall

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.- The New Mexico Department of Health hosted a Q&A session Friday on Facebook.

Matt Bieber, director of communications for the New Mexico Department of Health, fielded questions with Dr. Denise Gonzales, medical director for Presbyterian Healthcare Services.

One person asked how the state is choosing who gets vaccinated.

"The way it works is you go to vaccinenm.org, if you haven’t already, and I know many of you have, and you enter some basic information– how old you are, where you work if you work, and what your health conditions are," Bieber said. "Those three pieces of information allow us to figure out what phase you’re in."

New Mexico is using the CDC’s guidelines to decide who is eligible to receive the vaccine.

"In order for us to do this as fairly as possible, what we’re doing is randomizing within the eligible groups. So, if you’re in group 1A, when we have an appointment to fill, or an event to fill, we go to the 1A group in that town, and we ask the computer to pull names randomly and invite them," Bieber said. "And then once we’ve invited all of the eligible 1As, we go to the 75-plus group and do the same thing."

The system also decides who gets doses that need to be given out before they expire.

Bieber also revealed that plans for mobile clinics and in-home vaccinations are in the works.

Click here to see the other questions addressed during the Facebook town hall.