The first mass vaccination clinic for those 65 years and older has been scheduled for Washington County.

Public health will be holding the clinic from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, February 6th at the Wellman Parkside YMCA. Residents can schedule an appointment beginning Monday, February 1st, and Administrator Danielle Pettit-Majewski emphasizes that appointments will not be taken before that time, and if your call is not answered by public health staff to then call back, as voicemails will not be returned and they cannot schedule over email or Facebook. As Phase 1B of vaccinations begins in Iowa February 1st, Pettit-Majewski says they have initially been allocated 200 doses for this phase, “We’ll prioritize so we’ll do like tier one and elderly first, and get through tier one. The elderly phase will be a population we will be targeting throughout, but we will be sub prioritizing like trying to do half of our elderly people and half of those tiers and then moving through so it’ll take time and I have to emphasize that, that it’ll take time because we’re only allocated so much vaccine.”

Pettit-Majewski adds that each week as they learn what their expected vaccine allocation will be, they will schedule additional clinics. The vaccine is free, but residents are also asked to bring their Medicare card with them. For more information, visit here.