Mayor George Flaggs Jr. had planned to receive the COVID-19 vaccine Wednesday but said he will now wait until the community’s frontline medical workers and first responders get theirs. 

“As soon as it is offered I will take it,” he said. “It is so important the frontline healthcare workers and first responders receive it.”

Flaggs also said the city’s safety director Steve Williams and Vicksburg Fire Chief Craig Danczyk were putting together a plan on how vaccinations involving the city’s first responders — particularly those with the fire department’s emergency medical personnel — will be handled.

The first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine began being administered to personnel with Merit Health River Region last week. That process will be accelerated as more vaccine is made available.

Health officials have not announced a firm timeline yet as to when the vaccine will be made available to the general public, saying that it would be after the first of the year.