Chaotic Vaccine Rollout Leaves Seniors Confused About When They Can Get Shot - Across America, US - Many older Americans don't know where to turn with vaccine distribution systems in disarray and COVID-19 cases and deaths surging again.
Chaotic Vaccine Rollout Leaves Seniors Frustrated and Confused
People have their temperature checked as they arrive at a Disneyland parking lot to receive COVID-19 vaccines on January 13, 2021, in Anaheim, California.
Valerie Macon / AFP via Getty Images
By
For weeks, doctorsâ phones have been ringing off the hook with anxious older patients on the other end of the line.
âWhen can I get a covid-19 vaccine?â these patients want to know. âAnd where?â
Frustration and confusion are rampant as states and counties begin to offer vaccines to all seniors after giving them first to front-line health care workers and nursing home residents â the groups initially given priority by state and federal authorities.
Jordan Mobley Photography Halley Reeves is a community health strategist and a 2019 OKG s Forty Under 40 recipient. Reeves earned a master’s degree in public health from University of Washington and a master’s degree in city planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a member of American Public Health Association and American Planning Association.
OKG: Tell Us a little bit about yourself and your year compared to normal years?
Halley Reeves: This year has been one for the history books. It’s been a year filled with enormous loss and challenges while also magnifying the many blessings we have – and introduced me to some tremendous Oklahomans. In my role at OU Health, I normally would oversee the health system’s community health work. At the beginning of 2020, we had just started our first community health needs assessment and began diving into an analy
By: Tevis Hillis
More than a thousand patients 65 years and older will be vaccinated at Mercy hospital with health officials hoping this can help relieve some of the strain on space the hospital sees. If you were to walk across the street, to look inside our hospital ward or look inside our hospital ICU, the majority of the individuals you see are over the age of 65, Dr. Jesse Campbell with Mercy Clinic Oklahoma.
While many are getting vaccinated, health officials and those getting the vaccine warn the fight against COVID-19 is not over yet. It s not going to be a cure-all, but it is going to be something that is going to help, said one man in line to get his vaccine.
Slots are full for Thursday s COVID-19 vaccine clinic through the Oklahoma City County Health Department.
The OCCHD is asking those that don t have an appointment to not show up.
OCCHD told News 9 anyone who secured a spot should have gotten an email confirming your appointment with instructions. When you show up you to have an ID with your date of birth because this clinic is specifically for people 65-years-old and up.
If you are not the right age, they will turn you away and give that vaccine to a healthcare worker.
It will be up to Mercy who is allowed into the hospital, even if it s just to assist someone getting the vaccine.