Allamakee County Public Health says limited vaccine is being disseminated with help from local healthcare partners
Even though the map of vaccine provider locations on the State of Iowa COVID-19 website (https://coronavirus.iowa.gov) continues to show Allamakee County as one of eight counties in the state of Iowa without a list of vaccine provider sites as of Monday, February 8, Allamakee County Public Health officials say the limited vaccine doses that have been alloted to Allamakee County by the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) are being injected into as many arms as those limited doses allow.
Allamakee County Public Health Supervisor Sheryl Darling-Mooney explained that the number of doses being allocated to Allamakee County thus far, coupled with the fact that those doses have to be distributed within a week’s time in order to continue to receive dose allotments, has not allowed for local public health officials to establish a larger mass vaccination clinic, such as may be seen in other counties in Iowa that are receiving larger dose allotments. Darling-Mooney says that such a larger clinic would require between 400 and 500 doses at the very least, and Allamakee County has yet to receive any more than 300 doses in any given week’s time.
Those Allamakee County doses have been distributed across a variety of the Phase 1B vaccination group designated by IDPH, both through Allamakee County Public Health - which has been directing its vaccination efforts toward the first responders group in Tier 1 of that Phase 1B group - and through its area healthcare partners, which include area Gundersen Healthcare Clinics, Hartig Drug and Veterans Memorial Hospital in Waukon and Prescription Shoppe in Postville - all of whom have been vaccinating their respective eligible patient groups as much as the alloted doses will allow. Of those partners, only Hartig Drug (www.hartigdrug.com) and Prescription Shoppe (www.nightingaledrug.com) have waiting lists the public can sign up for through their respective websites. Gundersen Clinic also has an information and notification system for those who sign up through its MyChart system (https://mychart.gundersenhealth.org).
Darling-Mooney says she has provided IDPH with the vaccination provider information for those Allamakee County Public Health partner organizations. She is looking into why that information has not been updated on that vaccine provider map on the IDPH website.
Darling-Mooney also notes that the information on that IDPH website for vaccine doses administered currently shows 1,494 first doses being administered in Allamakee County, which is nearly 11% of the county population of 13,813, according to recent Census numbers. That percentage of population that has received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine in Allamakee County is in the same 10-11% range experienced by many other Iowa counties, and slightly higher in comparison to neighboring Winneshiek and Clayton counties.
Darling-Mooney says that Allamakee County Public Health continues to remain in touch with IDPH regarding being allotted more doses of the vaccine, but notes that every county in Iowa is doing the same thing in vying for a limited number of doses the State is receiving from the Federal level supply that is obviously not meeting nationwide demand. She is hopeful that with continued attention being given to increasing supply - either through an increase in production or other vaccines being approved - that local allotment numbers can improve enough to plan a larger vaccination clinic sometime in March.
