Howard Community College Opening Up As COVID-19 Vaccination Clinic January 25
COLUMBIA, Md. (WJZ) -- Howard Community College will serve as a COVID-19 vaccination clinic starting next week, Howard County Executive Calvin Ball and other county officials announced Tuesday.
"I want the message to be clear – when Howard County receives more vaccine, we get shots in arms immediately," said Ball. "We're working around the clock to rapidly scale up vaccination clinics and vaccinate up to 20,000 people per week. As we've known since the start of this pandemic, it's going to take all of us working together to get to the other side of this."
Since the vaccine became available on December 23, the county has requested 14,600 doses. County Executive Ball said Tuesday the county has received 52% of that.
As of Monday night, more than 7,000 doses have been administered to Phase 1A of the 7,600 doses received. The county will have gone through 100% of its vaccine allocation by Tuesday.
After they received more than 12,700 pre-registrations, they have made adjustments to be able to vaccinate registered seniors and those in Phase 1B starting Tuesday. County officials said they believe there are 30,000 to 40,000 people in 1B alone.
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Phase 1A will continue on a rolling basis.
Health Officer Dr. Rossman has requested 20,000 vaccines to support that effort, County Executive Ball said. In an effort to ramp up those vaccinations, Howard Community College will be a vaccination site starting January 25.
The site will allow the county to vaccinate an additional 1,500 people per day once they receive more doses from the state.
To prepare for Phase 1C, pre-registration is live and has already gotten more than 12,500 sign ups. There are nearly 100,000 people included in Phase 1A, 1B and 1C in the county who will be eligible to get the vaccine in the coming weeks. They said all of those people will need two doses.
Assisted living and nursing homes are being serviced by a federal contract with pharmacies; that is who will administer the vaccine to residents and staff there.
Watch the full news conference below:
For the latest information on coronavirus go to the Maryland Health Department's website or call 211. You can find all of WJZ's coverage on coronavirus in Maryland here.
