The Durham County Department of Public Health announced on Thursday that it will temporarily end its vaccine schedule due to the limited supply of COVID-19 vaccine, with immediate effect.
The public health department will also not add new vaccination dates to its online scheduling website until a later date to be determined.
At the moment, no scheduled vaccine appointments will be canceled or postponed, although some appointments from Monday, February 1 will be transferred from Durham’s health department to the Southern High School location. Individuals whose appointments are to be transferred to Southern High School will be contacted by phone or email.
“We are very grateful that we did not have to cancel any permanent consultations, but as Secretary Cohen explained to the public at her press conference earlier this week, the sad reality is that demand is outstripping supply,” said health director Rod Jenkins. . “Durham County has a base allocation of 600 first doses for the next three weeks, and we are not sure when our allocation will increase. It is best to stop scheduling until we are sure that we will be able to meet additional commitments.”
Although the public health department hopes to be able to honor the appointments already scheduled, the public is encouraged to be aware of the accurate sources of information and communications from our team, as the delivery of the vaccine is subject to change.
“We hope that by the end of February we will be able to reopen our programming process and see the supply increase, but that is uncertain at this time. We will continue to provide more information as it is received,” said Jenkins.
Individuals in stages 1 and 2 of vaccination can still sign up for the COVID-19 vaccine waiting list at tinyurl.com/DCoVaccineWaitlist in English or tinyurl.com/DCoListaVacunas in Spanish to receive a call if vaccine doses are available due cancellation of the consultation or no shows.