The Southern Nevada Health District is ramping up its coronavirus vaccination efforts and has launched an online portal to sign up for an appointments, although space is limited to those in prioritized groups — seniors over age 70 and frontline workers.
The Health District is teaming with UNLV, North Las Vegas and Henderson to open neighborhood vaccination sites. A mass vaccination site at Cashman Center will debut Thursday, officials said.
“The sooner we can get large numbers of people vaccinated, the faster we can put this pandemic behind us,” Clark County Commission Chairwoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick said.
Frontline healthcare workers, the first group to receive vaccines last month, should wrap up their inoculations this week or next week, Dr. Fermin Leguen, the Southern Nevada Health District’s acting chief health officer, said.
This will allow the county to move into the next phase of vaccination, with new “megasites” at Cashman Center and the Las Vegas Convention Center helping the health district distribute up to 45,000 shots a week.
“We want to emphasize that now that we are expanding our offer of vaccine to the community, we need to be aware that this offering is contingent (on) availability of vaccines that we receive from the federal government through the state,” Leguen said. “Our ability to reach that number weekly of course is depending on the number of vaccines that we receive every week.”
Through Monday, there have been 28,978 COVID-19 vaccines administered in Clark County, officials said. The Health District says it has received 70,450 doses for distribution.
The plan is to get it to the public as quickly as possible. Officials are also stressing patience as spots are quickly filling up.
Some sites are exclusively for senior citizens.
Those in the prioritized group, including teachers, hospitality workers, law enforcement, construction workers and seniors ages 70 and older, are listed below. Preregistration for the general public (those not in a prioritized group) will open Saturday.
“It is crucial that we do everything we can to ramp up vaccination efforts,” said Scott Black, a North las Vegas Councilman who is the Southern Nevada Health District board Chairman.
“In North Las Vegas, we have long been prepared to step in and help, and we are ready to assist in the effort to keep people healthy and get Southern Nevada open for business,” he said.
Prioritized groups include (each section is thoroughly defined in document below):
Public safety and security
This group includes: Nevada Department of Corrections, law enforcement officers, public safety, national security, and state and local emergency operations staff
Frontline community support
This group includes: Educators and childcare workers — private and public schools, and those affiliated with the Nevada System of Higher Education; community frontline workers, including legal and social services, and workers who support food banks and shelters; essential public transportation such as Citizen Area Transit workers; mortuary services.
Frontline supply chain and logistics
This group includes workers in the grocery and supply chain of essential items, utilities and communications infrastructure, Nevada Department of Transportation, frontline airport workers and local road emergency personnel.
Frontline commerce and service
Food service and hospitality workers, hygiene products and service, and workers at credit institutions.
Frontline infrastructure
Construction workers and mining operations.
Others
College students living on campus or campus-sponsored apartments.
Residents age 70 and older are also eligible to signup for the vaccine. Ages 65-69 will go next, according to the Health District.
Then, it’s residents age 16-64 with underlying health conditions, along with individuals with disabilities and the homeless population. The conditions include: cancer, chronic kidney disease, heart conditions, Down syndrome, pregnancy, diabetes and more. (See document below).
The following group is healthy adults age 16-64. The last group are inmates or residents of transitional offender housing.