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MDH more focused on getting people vaccinated than wasting doses
Now that there s ample supply of the vaccine, health officials focus has shifted.
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Credit: Minnesota Department of Health
For months, Minnesota officials have treated the COVID-19 vaccines like gold but now with more supply and in an effort to get more shots into more arms, they re more OK with a little waste.
The Minnesota Department of Health on May 14 updated its COVID-19 vaccine provider guide for those administering the vaccines, renaming its do not waste vaccine section to do not miss an opportunity to vaccinate, an MDH bulletin says.
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Walmart pharmacies announced walk-in COVID-19 vaccine appointments in 80 Minnesota locations on Tuesday amid signs of weakening demand for the shots.
Minnesota on Tuesday neared a threshold of 60% of eligible people 16 and older receiving vaccine with nearly 2.6 million people receiving at least a first shot and nearly 2 million completing the one- or two-dose series. However, the state s progress toward its 80% vaccination goal has slowed.
The number of weekly doses administered has fallen in Minnesota from 405,870 in the seven-day period starting April 4 to 276,234 in the seven-day period starting April 25. Some of that decline was because of a two-week pause in the administration of Johnson & Johnson vaccine to review rare blood clots that occurred in a handful of young female recipients. However, the single-dose J&J vaccine makes up only 4.5% of total doses administered in Minnesota.
Minnesota launches mobile vaccine clinics by bus Buses deployed to reach out to communities hit hard by COVID-19. April 20, 2021 3:03pm Text size Copy shortlink:
Minnesota is transforming buses into mobile vaccine units in hopes of boosting immunizations in communities that have been hit hard by COVID-19.
Staffed to provide up to 150 vaccinations per day, the buses will be dispatched at the request of community groups that want to host vaccine events.
In the process, health officials hope to target ZIP codes identified in federal data as particularly vulnerable as well as agricultural workplaces, homeless encampments and housing complexes where residents lack transportation. Targeted communities include people of color, urban Native Americans and people with disabilities, according to the state Health Department, although buses might also take vaccinations to large workplaces such as facto