More Montco COVID-19 Clinics Coming Once More Vaccine Available

NORRISTOWN, PA — Last week saw Montgomery County debut their first public coronavirus vaccination clinic at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell. It won't be the only one in the county for long.

Like several other nearby counties, Montgomery County plans to open more clinics as more doses of the vaccine become available.

"Right now, the demand for the vaccinations is greater than the supply," Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh said.

Vaccines are currently only available for healthcare workers in the state's 1A priority group. Arkoosh acknowledged the hundreds of thousands of residents eagerly waiting for their vaccine, especially the elderly over 75 who qualify for the 1B vaccinations.

Arkoosh said that currently, the county is able to vaccinate at least 800 people a day at the Blue Bell clinic. The infrastructure appears to be ready to handle much more than that, but, as of last Thursday, the county had not received any new shipments of doses. They're working from stockpiles of several thousand already received.

All told, the county has administered 13,447 partial vaccinations, and 720 full vaccinations, as of Monday afternoon.

In addition to healthcare workers receiving the vaccine, early doses have also been site aside for those in long term care facilities. A total of 20 facilities across Montgomery County received vaccines last week through clinics hosted by CVS or Walgreens.

It's not yet clear where the future county clinics will be located. But as recently as the fall, the county said they had plans in place to utilize the six existing community testing sites, located in Ardmore, Lansdale, Green Lane, Willow Grove, Norristown, and Pottstown, to distribute the vaccine.

And secondly, the county already has in place something called a "point of dispensing" or POD system. The CDC describes these systems, pre-existing in many states, counties, and municipalities around the country, as "community locations at which local agencies dispense and administer medical countermeasures to the public."

Typically, a POD system is a collection of schools, healthcare facilities, and community centers which can transform into such public health sites in emergencies. "There's a big list of possible locations for where this can be done," Arkoosh said at the time.