COVID-19 vaccinations discussed in community partners conference call

Those listening in on the community partners conference call Wednesday morning were given updates on the county's COVID-19 vaccination process.

Vernon County Health Department

"Last week and this week, we are seeing a very steady decline in the amount of cases that we are getting each week," noted a department representative. "We had only 48 new cases last week, which brought our total to 1,827 for Vernon County. Out of those 48 that we added last week, only 32 of them were active cases. As for a vaccine update, we were approved late last week and we did go ahead and submit an order for vaccines last week and have resubmitted another order for this week. Those orders have to be in today by 5 p.m., and then they will approve them Thursday and Friday. So, we are waiting to hear if our order from this week will be approved or not."

Nevada Regional Medical Center

"We are in a vaccine agreement with multiple hospitals along the I-49 corridor," noted Chief Quality Officer Holly Bush. "We received our Pfizer vaccine for the second shot today, so we'll give those Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then Tuesday of next week. We're really please to report that we were approved for 500 doses of the Moderna vaccine. We expect to get those by the end of today. We are planning a mass vaccination clinic at the city community center on Saturday. It will run from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. We're going to try to give 250 vaccines then, and then we will go again on Feb. 5 — we will give the other 250." In regards to the mass vaccination clinic at the community center, NRMC will be calling individuals to receive the vaccine — people are asked to not just show up. "We have a list of well over 1,000 people who are on our waitlist," noted Bush.

Compass Health

A representative noted, "we have been giving our second doses of the Moderna and Pfizer. We are not in line, at this moment, to get additional vaccines. We do continue to submit our applications for those."

Cottey College

"Our students arrived back and we tested everyone with a rapid response, followed by a PCR for anyone who tested positive," stated Cottey College President Jann Weitzel. "As it turned out, we have four students who are positive and they went immediately into isolation. Right now, we're in good shape."