A nonprofit health organization is giving some of the COVID-19 vaccine supplies it gets from the federal Indian Health Services to the City and Borough of Juneau for its next mass vaccination clinic in March.
City Emergency Manager Robert Barr says the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, or SEARHC, is partnering with the city to help make sure that a larger portion of the Juneau area’s eligible population can be vaccinated.
“I think due to the progress that SEARHC has made throughout Southeast Alaska, they have some vaccines in the IHS allocation that can be delivered via these clinics,” Barr said.
The city’s next vaccine clinic is scheduled for March 12th and 13th. Appointments will become available on Feb. 25th at noon. The public is encouraged to sign up online, but anyone without internet access can also register by calling 586-6000.
Up until now, vaccine eligibility was limited to frontline medical workers and people who were 65 and older. But now, many educators and childcare workers, people aged 50 and up, people who live in crowded facilities like prisons, shelters or psychiatric facilities and pandemic response workers are eligible.
“Our estimate is that includes somewhere around 7,500 people, most of whom haven’t been vaccinated yet because it just opened up last week and we haven’t had any vaccine to administer to them but that will, of course, change in March,” Barr said.
According to a media release, SEARHC still has plenty of supplies for its patients, Alaska Native beneficiaries and their families. Those people can register at COVID19.searhc.org.
Juneau health officials reported two new COVID-19 cases on Friday. Both are people who caught the virus through community spread. There are 22 active cases in Juneau, and one person with the virus being treated at Bartlett Regional Hospital, according to a city media release.
