Summit County continues to receive less vaccine than it can distribute. Health Director Rich Bullough, pictured with Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson during a vaccine site tour Friday, said that 1/3 of the doses administered so far have gone to non-county residents.
Tanzi Propst/Park Record
Some Summit County staffers sported jackets and neckties when Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson arrived on Friday for a tour of Summit County’s vaccine clinic, one that officials have said can deliver three times the number of doses it receives from the state each week.
After the tour, Summit County Health Director Rich Bullough said local health departments have seen modestly larger vaccine shipments from the state in recent weeks, but revealed some challenges have hit Summit County particularly hard.
Inside Park City High School, officials tested 900 students on Monday, while in the parking lot outside, TestUtah staffers ran a free community testing clinic. The “Test to Stay” program aims to keep schools open even as the district weathers the largest outbreak yet.
Tanzi Propst/Park Record
Park City’s secondary students returned to school on Monday after nearly two weeks of remote learning, but as per usual during the pandemic, it was far from a typical school day.
Throughout the morning, the district summoned 900 students from Treasure Mountain Junior High School and Park City High School to the high school gym for rapid COVID-19 antigen tests on the first day of what officials call the “Test to Stay” program.
Jessica Kirk is looking forward to her turn to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
The 46-year-old mother of three and former medical secretary has a compromised immune system, which places her at greater risk of experiencing complications from the coronavirus that has already claimed more than 400,000 Americans’ lives.
Kirk is confident in the safety of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Her fellow community members, however, don’t all feel the same way.
Many of Kirk’s neighbors in the predominantly Black and low-income neighborhood of East Akron are hesitant to take the vaccine because they fear negative consequences.
“They think it’s just the government giving them something just to kill off, you know… the poor Black community. … [Not] just Black people, but minorities,” Kirk said on a frigid early January afternoon outside of Dave’s Supermarket, a bustling neighborhood grocery store.
Summit County to receive 5,750 coronavirus vaccines for people 80+ on Jan. 19 or 20; no countywide registration database
Updated Jan 13, 2021;
Posted Jan 13, 2021
In a NJ.com file photo, a resident at Juniper Village at Chatham receives his first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Jan. 11, 2021. People 80 and older are set to begin receiving coronavirus vaccines next in Summit County, but are mostly on their own in figuring out where and when to go. Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media
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AKRON, Ohio – Summit County is expecting to receive more than 5,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine next week, but is largely leaving people 80 and older on their own to figure out where and how to get vaccinated.