Following the Coronavirus

Local Health Officials: Pay Attention to Who Schedules Your COVID-19 Vaccine Appointment

By DEREK REDD 2 min read
A worker holds a bottle of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, as the mass public vaccination program gets underway, at the NHS Louisa Jordan Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland, Tuesday Dec. 8, 2020. The United Kingdom is beginning its vaccination campaign to inoculate people against the COVID-19 virus. (Jeff J Mitchell/Pool via AP)

Residents contacted by someone in the coming weeks telling them their COVID-19 vaccine is ready for them must pay close attention to who is doing the contacting.

Gov. Jim Justice announced Tuesday that West Virginia will partner with Walgreens as part of the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program, which makes another nearly 6,000 doses of vaccine available to qualifying West Virginians each week. The state government will send the pharmacy chain names from its Everbridge scheduling system to vaccinate.

Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department Administrator Howard Gamble said it's great that a pharmacy chain has joined the fight in the state to inoculate residents for COVID-19. He's offering two pieces of advice to those who get contacted -- listen carefully and be patient. No one wants a resident to be disappointed because they went to the wrong site to get their vaccine.

"Be patient, pay attention to where you need to go, whether it's a pharmacy or county health, and get vaccinated," he said. "But I think being patient is the biggest thing. It will get around to everybody. It's just going to take a little time."

The Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department reported one new COVID-related death in its Monday night report, the county's 64th since the pandemic began. It also reported 10 new positive cases, bringing that total to 3,638.

The Marshall County Health Department reported 23 new confirmed positive COVID-19 cases and 11 probable cases in its Monday night report. That brought the county's totals to 2,263 confirmed cases, 608 probable cases, seven hospitalizations and 60 associated deaths.

Meanwhile, the metrics continued to show improvement on the Department of Health and Human Resources COVID-19 Alert Map on Monday. Only three of the state's 55 counties — Hardy, Hampshire and Berkeley — were in red, the map's highest-risk category. Twenty-two were orange, 19 were gold, seven were yellow and four were green.

Ohio County moved to gold on Monday's map, while Hancock and Marshall counties stayed in orange and Brooke County stayed in yellow.

In Ohio, the Belmont County Health Department reported 5,098 total cases since the start of the pandemic. There also have been 58 hospitalizations and 91 associated deaths.

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