Local officials pleased with vaccination progress

Feb. 26—OTTUMWA — Though Wapello County is still straddling different tiers for COVID-19 vaccinations, local officials believe they're progressing as they anticipate a busy and consequential March.

In a response to Gov. Kim Reynolds' Thursday announcement of a new vaccination website, Emergency Management's Tim Richmond said Friday that the county "is ahead of the curve."

"Early on we formed partnerships in our community so we have multiple outlets for vaccine distribution, and those partners have been ready, willing and able to do that the last several weeks," Richmond said. "I feel like we have multiple options and a good cross-section of options."

Starting March 5, educators in the county will begin receiving their second dose of vaccine, and the county's largest manufacturer also is in line for vaccinations later in the month. Public health clinical director Lynelle Diers said the Iowa Department of Public Health will aid in the vaccinations at large manufacturers.

"We're still in the first tier of the Phase 1B group, and we're getting a lot of child care and day care providers scheduled and getting them in," Diers said. "We're still getting 500 doses a week, keeping 100 of those here and pushing the rest to our pharmacy partners."

Richmond expects "to make a huge dent" in the older population by the end of March, even as the county continues to offer vaccines to health care workers and frontline workers. Wapello County has approximately 6,000 residents 65 and older.

"We've made great progress with our seniors," he said. "There are some exciting things on tap for the tiers. I think we're doing very well in this county."

"March will be a very busy month for us at public health, but it's also going to be a very busy month for our partners," Diers said. "They have the challenge of not only getting the prime dose, but they're also going to be getting the booster doses."

Most residents who received the first dose will be due for the booster dose soon, and those residents must go back to the same place they received the initial dose. Also, residents can't take one brand of vaccine in the first dose and another brand for the booster.

Richmond also gave an update on the rural outreach program, which he said had about 350 to 400 people registered as of early Friday, the last day residents could call their city or township clerks. Under the program, public health will make doses available to clinics in seven different rural areas, based on the availability of doses and quantity of residents registered to get the vaccine.

"What's been going on this week is we're getting phone calls from seniors who said the pharmacy they signed up with called them back and they're getting a dose there. That's a wonderful phone call to take because it shows progress," Richmond said. "We want them to know that just because they're on our list, and they get a call from their doctor, clinic, etc., we want them to go get that dose. Take your first opportunity and go get it and we'll take them off the list."

Also, the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine figures to be a player in the local vaccine situation soon. With Food and Drug Administration approval, the county would have three different vaccines available after all three Hy-Vee locations received 126 doses apiece of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine last week, Richmond said. The J&J vaccine has about the same efficacy as a flu shot, while also protecting against any variants, and it will be used in the local manufacturing sector.

"We're very excited about that," Diers said. "Giving a one-dose vaccine will help us to move from place to place quicker, rather than always having to reschedule and go back and boost everyone. But the reality right now is we have two very good vaccines already being administered and will continue to be administered.

"It doesn't matter which manufacturer. We just need to get the doses into arms."

Even though the number of doses available will increase over time, Diers said the virus isn't going away.

"We're going to have to learn how to live with COVID," she said. "It's just another disease now that's in our population that's here to stay. So we have to figure out how we live with this in the future.

"It takes years and years to control viruses with vaccine. Look at smallpox and polio," she said. "It takes a while to get enough people vaccinated for herd immunity. We will get there, and we've come a long ways in our response to this pandemic."

— Chad Drury can be reached at cdrury@ottumwacourier.com, and on Twitter @ChadDrury