Thousands of vaccine nominations were missed last week, prompting local health officials to call for the opening of COVID-19 vaccines for people 55 and older.
Clark County’s two mass vaccination sites, as well as the smaller sites, are operating well below capacity, Southern Nevada Health District health director Fermin Leguen said on Monday.
“We are really struggling now to fill our vaccination sites,” said Leguen.
Both mass vaccination sites are capable of delivering approximately 4,000 doses per day. However, Leguen said recently that the Cashman Center has managed less than 2,500 a day, and the Las Vegas Convention Center rarely reaches 3,000.
The problem arises less than a month after vaccine eligibility began for residents aged 65 to 69 years. Another group of frontline workers became eligible on March 2.
The drop in consultations did not lead to an increase in missed doses, said Leguen. However, there are hundreds of volunteers, staff and members of the Nevada National Guard working in vaccination sites that are not being used to their full potential.
Leguen said that more people aged 65 to 69 may still be working, compared to older residents, making it more difficult to schedule an appointment during the day. The health district plans to expand the public reach and keep mass vaccination sites open later in an attempt to attract more patients, he said.
But the most effective solution for increasing nominations immediately would be to allow access to a larger group of the public.
The health district has asked state officials to lower the minimum age of eligibility for the vaccine for the general public from 65 to 55, said Leguen. About 270,000 people aged 55 to 64 live in Clark County, according to 2019 Census Bureau estimates.
The Nevada vaccination manual does not have a predefined eligibility group for people aged 55 to 64. Instead, the next group would be people aged 16 to 64, with underlying diseases, disabilities or homelessness.
Nevada Department of Health and Human Services officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
In the early days of the Nevada vaccination campaign, consultations were frustratingly difficult to happen and were often scheduled minutes or hours after they were made available.
That changed as the state’s weekly vaccine allocation increased rapidly.
In January, the average weekly allocation was around 36,000 doses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In February, it rose to about 48,000. So far, in March, after the launch of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, it is close to 76,000.
Other large-scale vaccination sites have reported lackluster attendance in recent times.
The UNLV clinic, which can administer 2,000 doses per day, is operating at half capacity in the past business days, said Dr. Michael Gardner, president and CEO of UNLV Medicine, the medical practice at the university’s School of Medicine.
In addition to promoting vaccination through websites and social media, Gardner personally called supermarkets in the region to encourage managers to inform employees that they became eligible for vaccination last week.
Until more groups become eligible, “we are concerned that this is an ongoing problem,” said Gardner.
Speaking as a doctor and not as a UNLV representative, he said he hopes that eligibility will soon be expanded to more occupations, more age groups and people with underlying health problems.
“I hope we can move in these directions in the relatively near future, because it will help a lot of people,” he said.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Where to get the vaccine
Appointments for the first dose on the same day and appointments for the second dose for people who have been vaccinated in a health district or partner clinic are available on the Cashman Center and Las Vegas Convention Center websites.
The Cashman clinic is located at Exhibition Hall B, 850 N. Las Vegas Blvd. The Convention Center clinic is located in area C-1 of the facility’s Central Hall. Both sites are open from Tuesday to Saturday.
Questions? Call 1-800-401-0946 from 8 am to 8 pm daily.
Contact Michael Scott Davidson at [email protected] or 702-477-3861. follow @davidsonlvrj on twitter.
Contact Mary Hynes at [email protected] or 702-383-0336. follow @ MaryHynes1 on twitter.