COLUMBUS, Ind. — As local health officials enter the second month of the biggest vaccination drive in U.S. history, they are putting together plans for an eventual increase in weekly COVID-19 vaccine allocations. However, much remains uncertain about when the supply of vaccines will increase.
Columbus Regional Health, which operates a COVID-19 vaccination clinic in Columbus, has notified state health officials that it has the capacity to vaccinate more people than it currently is doing. But state officials are waiting to see how many doses they will receive from the federal government before increasing local allocations, CRH officials said.
“We are ready to give any vaccine that (the state) can give us,” said Dr. Slade Crowder, CRH vice president of physician enterprise operations and associate chief medical officer. “…We have capacity to immunize more people, but the state hasn’t opened up our schedule because they can’t assure us vaccines.”
“We’re not sitting on vaccines,” he added.
Currently, the two vaccination sites in Bartholomew County are receiving a combined total of about 1,700 doses of COVID-19 vaccines per week, including about 1,200 per week at a clinic operated by CRH and 500 at a clinic operated by the Bartholomew County Health Department.
As of Thursday, CRH’s clinic had administered 5,500 doses out of the 8,000 vaccines it had received, or about 69%, Crowder said. The remaining 2,500 doses provide about a five- to seven-day buffer.
The Bartholomew County Health department had administered 160 of the initial 200 doses it had received, or about 80%, said Amanda Organist, the department’s director of nursing.
On Thursday, the county health department received an additional 500 doses and can administer about 40 shots per day, Organist said.
By contrast, about 40.5% of vaccines distributed to Indiana had been administered as of Thursday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For the complete story, see Sunday’s Republic.
