The Washington County Board of Supervisors discussed Phase 1B of COVID-19 vaccinations that have begun this week during their Tuesday meeting.

Supervisor Richard Young told County Public Health Administrator Danielle Pettit-Majewski that three rescue agencies in the county contacted him Monday asking when they would get the vaccine, as first responders, firefighters, and law enforcement are included in Phase 1B. Pettit-Majewski explained their first public vaccination clinic for those 65 years and older is scheduled this Saturday as that population is eligible to receive the vaccine through all five tiers of Phase 1B distribution because they are more prone to serious health effects of COVID-19, “Trying to coordinate those mass clinics is a significant amount of work, we have over 30 volunteers that we’re trying to coordinate and we wanted to make sure that we had enough people, enough vaccine to give out to make it justifiable for all of the work that it takes. We will be reaching out to them, we just have to wait until we have enough and so we’re working with our partners and we are working to determine what our actual vaccine allocation will be to do those closed PODs.”

Pettit-Majewski mentioned that her department has contacted all of the first responder agencies in the county for their roster information, and closed Point-of-Distribution clinics will be done where those groups are cohorted. She emphasized that Phase 1B covers a larger population of Iowans than what the state is allocated for vaccines. Pettit-Majewski says that each county’s allocation is based on its population, for which she says the county has been lucky.