Vaccines available now to grocery, postal and transit workers, those with medical conditions
Feb. 24—CHEYENNE — Several new groups of Laramie County residents, including those who work for grocery stores, public transit or the Postal Service, as well as individuals under 65 with certain underlying health conditions, are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine starting this week.
The Cheyenne-Laramie County Health Department released updated guidelines Monday about who is newly eligible to get the first dose of the two-part vaccine.
Those groups include:
Public transit employees, which includes community transportation buses and airline flight crew members working on passenger planes.
People with the following health conditions: cancer (current diagnosis of cancer), chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (including emphysema, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, cystic fibrosis and chronic bronchitis), solid organ transplant, sickle cell disease, Down syndrome and pregnancy. The state health department recommends that pregnant women discuss vaccination with their health care provider in advance.
Grocery store employees, commercial meat processing employees, feedlot employees, other food supply chain facility employees and inspectors, and food manufacturing companies with 25 or more employees.
People on the Wyoming Medicaid Community Choices Waiver and Developmental Disabilities waivers.
U.S. Postal Service employees and delivery service companies, such as FedEx and UPS, likely to have more than 15 minutes of exposure to members of the public; clinical laboratory specimen courier employees.
People with the following conditions: diabetes, heart conditions (such as heart failure, coronary artery disease and cardiomyopathies), obesity (BMI over 30), immunocompromised state from solid organ transplant; blood or bone marrow transplant; immune deficiencies; long-term high dose corticosteroids; or other immune weakening medicines; severe neurologic conditions, including motor neuron disease, myasthenia gravis, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, cerebral palsy, quadriplegia or hemiplegia, progressive cerebe- llar disease, epilepsy, stroke and dementia.
After severe winter weather delayed vaccine shipments to Laramie County last week, North Star Pharmacy received an unexpected extra 1,170 doses of the Pfizer vaccine through a federal pharmacy program called Community Pharmacy Enhanced Services Network.
"I received a call last week saying that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recognized Wyoming as an area that was underserved with vaccinations. They asked if we'd be willing to take the 1,170 doses, and we said we'd give it a shot," Amy Schmidt, co-owner of North Star, said in between scheduling patients for vaccination appointments.
A requirement of accepting the extra doses, however, is administering them within 10 days.
So, in addition to being able to make a vaccination appointment at one of the many sites around town, eligible residents can also attend a special clinic this weekend.
North Star will facilitate a vaccination event from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 309 Western Hills Blvd., near McCormick Junior High School. Registration is required and can be completed online at https://www.jotform.com/210485912371050.
North Star's intake of those extra doses had a domino effect in Laramie County, allowing people in categories seven through nine, which are those outlined above, of the Wyoming Department of Health's Phase 1B vaccine prioritization schedule to receive a vaccination in the area several weeks earlier than expected.
"Without us receiving this allotment of vaccinations through the federal pharmacy program, that's 1,170 doses that wouldn't be in our community," Schmidt said. "This is helping us move through the phases quickly."
Health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities have been among those eligible for the vaccine since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved it late last year. To date, 80,492 Wyomingites have received the first shot of the vaccine and 38,997 have received the full course, according to the Wyoming Department of Health. In Laramie County, 12,478 people have received their first doses and 4,293 have received the second, according to the local health department.
The county expects to administer 2,000 total doses by the end of this week.
Kathy Emmons, executive director of the local health department, said there's no timeline for when people in lower-priority categories will become eligible for the vaccine, but rather it's based on the availability of supplies and how quickly health care providers can vaccinate each group.
"As we start getting to the end of one group, we start the second group, so that it's a constant moving target," she said.
Opening access to more of Laramie County's population will be key to restoring daily life to something resembling a pre-pandemic existence, she said.
"It helps move us to that herd immunity between people who have been positive in the community, as well as people who are being vaccinated now," Emmons said. "The quicker we can get more people vaccinated, the quicker we can move to a newer normal."
Kathryn Palmer is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's education reporter. She can be reached at kpalmer@wyomingnews.com or 307-633-3167. Follow her on Twitter at @kathrynbpalmer.
