Minnesota residents will have more options to choose where to get the vaccine two weeks after it was first made available in new state clinics. Two of these clinics – including one in Duluth – will be expanded to operate on a more permanent basis in the future, Governor Tim Walz announced on Monday, February 1, while the others are scheduled to reopen next week for booster doses.
“We have long planned that most Minnesota residents will be vaccinated in the places where they are used to receiving medical care – places like smaller clinics, local hospitals and community pharmacies,” the governor said in a statement. “But not everyone has a doctor or pharmacy that they are familiar with. That is why we have built a reliable network in different ways that Minnesotans can access the vaccine. After careful planning, we are now activating this network to provide Minnesota Options close to home. “
The governor’s announcement comes at the beginning of the first week that Minnesota will receive additional doses of the vaccine from the federal government. An additional 11,000 doses have been scheduled to be sent to the state, in addition to the 60,000 doses that are normally shipped each week under a plan to increase the vaccine supply previously announced by President Joe Biden’s administration.
Minnesota residents 65 and older will be able to find vaccine suppliers nearby, using an improved State Department of Health web tool, which debuted on Monday. More than 35,000 doses are being reserved for the new effort this week, according to Walz’s office.
Nursery staff, teachers and school staff – also served by state clinics that were launched two weeks ago – who have not yet received their vaccines will be eligible to do so at a larger clinic being treated in Minneapolis, which will operate on a more permanent basis than the clinic that had opened there earlier. They will also receive the vaccine at 35 local and municipal public health clinics in Minnesota, according to Walz’s office, as well as pharmacies in Brainerd, St. Cloud and Rochester that are expected to receive it.
Education and daycare workers will be notified by their respective employers of when they will be able to receive the vaccine.
A second large-scale vaccination clinic similar to that in Minneapolis will also open in Duluth. The elderly will still have access to the Duluth and Minneapolis clinics, and the launch of another clinic in southern Minnesota is planned for next week.
State Health Department Commissioner Jan Malcolm said on Monday that more semi-permanent clinics will open in the near future. By opening the clinics, she said, Minnesota is applying the lessons learned in the past two weeks, in which the concept of community clinic has been tested.
“We have to be ready to vaccinate the Minnesotans quickly, efficiently and on a large scale when we start getting more vaccines from the federal government,” said Malcolm in a press call.
Elderly residents who pre-registered for consultations at community vaccine clinics held last week but did not receive them “again will have the opportunity to be chosen to make an appointment for a vaccine this week at our Minneapolis or Duluth locations,” according to the state health department website. More than 220,000 people aged 65 and over were pre-registered on the health department’s website and phone line last week.
Community clinics in Blaine, Brooklyn Center, Fergus Falls, Marshall, Mountain Iron, North Mankato, Rochester, St. Cloud, St. Paul and Thief River Falls, however, will not reopen until next week. They will be open for two weeks starting next Thursday, February 11, to administer second round doses of the vaccine, two doses of which are needed for maximum effectiveness, according to the health department website.
For now, the plan is for people to return to the same community clinics where they received the initial doses for follow-up vaccines.
Prior to two weeks ago, vaccination efforts during the coronavirus pandemic had focused primarily on healthcare professionals and residents or patients in long-term care settings, the latter of whom are especially at risk of dying from COVID-19.
On Monday, state health officials reported that nearly 560,000 doses of the vaccine have been administered so far. Approximately 111,000 people in Minnesota received the two necessary doses of the vaccine, while another 418,299 received at least one injection.
An additional 727 cases of COVID-19 were reported in Minnesota on Monday. Two additional deaths have also been reported, both in the Twin Cities area.
Malcolm also said on Monday that Minnesota continues to test residents for COVID-19 at a more or less stable rate, and that the share of tests that test positive – averaged over a seven-day continuous average – is 4.8%.
Approximately 387 people are hospitalized due to COVID-19, said Malcolm, 92 of whom are in intensive care units.
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- Minnesota Department of Health COVID-19 hotline: 651-201-3920.
- COVID-19 hotline of discrimination: 833-454-0148
- Minnesota Department of Health COVID-19 website: Coronavirus disease website (COVID-19).