CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Appointments for mass COVID-19 vaccination clinics in Kanawha County have been in demand ever since the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department began the events at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
Dr. Sherri Young, executive director of the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department (KCHD), appeared on Thursday’s MetroNews ‘Talkline’ to detail the process of her health department as thousands are wanting to receive doses.
“We plan on doing a clinic Saturday for over 2,000 people,” Young said.
“It’ll really test us for how far we can go. Really, right now for our Kanawha County citizens we want more vaccine so we can put more vaccine arms.”
Supply seems to be the other thing holding the KCHD back from giving out more doses, according to Young. She said KCHD knows week-to-week on how many doses they will receive and can only take so many calls at once.
“We are very careful to give those appointments away because we don’t want to tell people certain things. We could make one thousand appointments for next week but we don’t know how many vaccines we are going to get. That’s part of the issue,” Young said.
Gov. Jim Justice and his administration said Thursday that currently the state isn’t expected to get more than the standard 23-thousand doses of the vaccine next week.
Kanawha County has vaccinated over 7,000 people to date and the health department has started many second doses for those people. A clinic event Thursday vaccinated 500 people.
Young said when additional doses of vaccine are provided by the state, the phone lines will be opened again to make reservations for potential events next week. She said she understands the state can only give so much, based on the federal supply.
“When it comes to the state, the state can’t give us more doses than what they have either. We are both caught over a barrel. We are limited to the number of vaccines that we can get,” Young said.
.@DrSherriYoung2 talks with @HoppyKercheval about how vaccine distribution is going in her county. WATCH: https://t.co/wkudfIRZCB pic.twitter.com/th3A79hUCD
— MetroNews (@WVMetroNews) January 21, 2021