More than 87,000 people have received the coronavirus vaccine in the state of Alabama.

That's less than 2% of the state population, and the supply of vaccines is far less than the demand.

The state's allotment of 271,000 vaccines also includes the second dose people will need to receive. The vaccine allocation is not all in the state of Alabama, though. The Alabama Department of Public Health still has to order and pull more vaccines from it.

Dr. Karen Landers says what vaccines the state has, they will administer.

"The Alabama Department of Public Health, local health departments, will not be able to vaccinate every person that wants to be vaccinated because we simply do not have the staff to be able to do that," said Landers.

Landers says more products will need to be approved for emergency use authorization to meet the demands for the vaccine.

The state of Alabama is currently still vaccinating health care workers and first responders, and some counties are able to vaccinate people 75 years old and above.

About 32% of Alabama's vaccine allotment has been administered.

Huntsville City Mayor Tommy Battle's goal is to vaccinate up to 10,000 people everyday in Madison County. He said that just because we have the vaccine, does not mean we are ready to go back to where we were before the pandemic started.

With more than 400,000 people living in Madison County, it will take awhile before all of them get the vaccine, even if we get to the point where we can vaccinate 10,000 people a week, and hopefully, a day.

"It will be quite a while before we get back to where we are. My prediction is March, April, we start seeing a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. June time frame, anytime, May, June, July, August, we'll start looking at it in the rear-view mirror," said Battle.

Battle says that a lot of people out there have been impacted by the virus or know someone who has been.

The Alabama Department of Public Health's vaccine hotline is experiencing difficulties. There are no more appointments available at county health departments to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, but the Alabama Department of Public Health will take your contact information and add you to a waiting list.

Landers from ADPH recognizes that the hotline has not been able to meet the demands of all the calls coming in.

"First of all, our hotline is a contract system. It is not employees of the Alabama Department of Public Health. There were 100 lines initially for the hotline. There were 165 persons trained initially. We are certainly asking for that capacity to be doubled so we can address the volume of calls coming in," said Landers.

Landers says ADPH will work with local county health departments to make sure that people are able to make appointments to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.