Pharmacies offer vaccine appointments

As the first members of the general public received coronavirus vaccinations on Tuesday two pharmacies in Carson Valley started offering appointments.

A Gardnerville resident said she was able to obtain an appointment going through the immunizenevada.org site where Smith’s and Walgreens pharmacies are offering vaccination appointments for residents 70 years and older.

Vaccinations were opened up for Nevadans in that age group on Jan. 11 and a site operated by Carson City Health and Human Services was quickly overwhelmed when it started offering appointments two days later.

Residents have been calling primary care physicians, help lines and a variety of other sources looking for vaccinations.

Both the Douglas County and Carson City senior centers are offering help navigating the appointment sites, though they are using the same web sites everyone else is, and therefore don’t have any special access.

“We have expanded the resources available for seniors 70-plus who are having difficulties scheduling an appointment or do not have access to the internet,” spokeswoman Jessica Rapp said. “If an individual calls the hotline, our staff members will assist them the best they can and direct them to the appropriate resource if additional assistance is needed.”

Douglas residents may call 782-5500, ext. 3 or 883-0703 if they don’t have a computer.

On Tuesday, residents with appointments were vaccinated at the Douglas County Community & Senior Center. The vaccination requires two doses three weeks apart to be fully effective.

The Alpine County Health Department has vaccinated almost 300 people with another 100 appointments, which would account for nearly a third of the county’s population.

Alpine may only offer vaccinations to residents of the California county.

Public Health Officer Dr. Richard Johnson said the county has completed vaccinating critical health care or emergency services workers who want it. He said Alpine will start with residents 75 and older. Alpine hasn’t had a new case of the virus since Jan. 4.

On Wednesday, Douglas County Emergency Management reported 4 new cases and 20 recoveries to bring the county to 1,010 active cases and 1,243 recoveries.

The health agency for Douglas, Carson, Lyon and Storey counties also released a new dashboard to track cases at gethealthycarsoncity.org.

The data available on the site is based on preliminary laboratory findings and may be adjusted as information is learned in investigations.

As of Tuesday, about half of the doses distributed to Nevada have been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

The state has received 211,750 total doses and has administered 102,840. Some of those are second doses. The Silver State is home to 3 million people and has received the second lowest number of doses distributed per 100,000 in the country.