Forty teachers with Limestone County Schools on Wednesday became some of the first in the latest phase of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout to receive their shot, with more scheduled to get their first dose today or Friday, officials said.

The phase was due to start Feb. 8, but Judy Smith, area administrator for the Alabama Department of Public Health, said Limestone County was fortunate enough to have reached enough residents in the first phase that they were given permission to start the next one early.

This second phase includes not just educators but residents 65 and older and employees in the following categories: food and agriculture; U.S. Postal Service, manufacturing, grocery stores, public transit, education, child care and judiciary. The group also includes corrections officers, additional first responders and those who work or live in group homes or homeless shelters.

“It’s very exciting,” said Mitzi Looney, a second-grade teacher at Johnson Elementary who received her first dose Wednesday. “We weren’t expecting it, because we’d been told teachers were being put off for a while.”

Looney listed her elderly mother, her students at school and her newborn granddaughter among her reasons for getting the vaccine. She encouraged anybody with the opportunity to do so to also get the vaccine.

“It was very easy,” Looney said. “We just went and I barely even felt it. It’s not what I was expecting; it was much better.”

However, finding that opportunity could prove more difficult in the coming weeks, according to Smith. Smith told The News Courier that the health department’s original plan of dividing an allotment equitably among teachers, elderly residents and the remaining qualifying residents was affected by the announcement that some vaccine would instead be sent to multiple providers.

“There wasn’t going to be enough vaccine,” Smith said. “… We tried to fulfill what we could with any extra vaccine we had in an equitable manner to those three groups, but … we won’t be able to keep up the plan.”

As a result, every dose the health department has is already committed as a first or second dose for someone. LCS said their district nurse had been in contact with the health department for some time, so they were fortunate enough to still be able to access vaccine for teachers this week.

For much of the rest of the county, it could be late March before appointments are available, according to Smith.

“We horribly regret that, because we really had hoped we would be able to take care of as many North Alabamians as possible,” Smith said, noting the issue is not specific to Limestone and has affected plans in Morgan and Marshall counties, too.

“As soon as we have vaccine, we are going to pick back up,” she said.