Since the State of Iowa opened up authorization for COVID-19 vaccinations to all residents 16 and up this past Monday, allocations have risen as well. Carroll County Public Health nurse, Sara Schulte, says that even though we only received an additional 100 Johnson and Johnson doses over and above the regular 300 Moderna for this week, we will see a big jump in those numbers for next week.
Because of this, Carroll County Public Health is working with the St. Anthony and McFarland Clinics and Manning Regional Healthcare Center to host another mass vaccination clinic next week.
The April 1 clinic at that same location in the Westgate Mall went so smoothly they will be following that model. Schulte says they served a lot of individuals at the first clinic, coming from as far as two and a half hours away. She says they are happy to help those people, but this has also resulted in cases where some are making multiple appointments and not cancelling the ones they do not use.
Even though variants of the virus are hitting some areas in Iowa, such as the Iowa City school district that had hundreds forced to isolate, Schulte says the positivity rates have remained pretty stable in Carroll County. In the past 14 days, that rate has hovered around 2.2 to three percent. Case counts coming in are generally not more than five a day. She says variants are likely in the area, it is just a matter of the Iowa Department of Public Health testing for them. She does believe, however, that they are doing appropriate testing at this point with healthcare providers conducting those on symptomatic individuals. Any residents needing a test to travel will have to find a Test Iowa site to get that done, the closest of which are in Fort Dodge and Ames. Until widespread vaccinations are completed, Schulte says it remains important to practice mitigation methods of mask wearing, social distancing and hand washing to keep our communities safe, particularly the younger people who are seeing more impact from COVID variants. When it comes to recent reports of the vaccine longevity being questioned, she points out the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is continuing to study this issue. She believes we will know more by the end of the year on whether or not vaccinations will need to continue on a routine basis in the future. The Moderna vaccine will be administered at next week’s clinic. This is only approved for those 18 and older. The appointment website for Thursday’s clinic is set to go live yet today (Friday) and scheduling can be done by following the link included below or by calling the COVID helpline at 794-5835.
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To schedule an appointment: https://www.stanthonyhospital.org/covid19vaccine/
