Public safety workers line up to enter Cashman Field during COVID-19 vaccinations Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021.
Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021 | 2 a.m.
The Southern Nevada Health District has a message for people who want their COVID-19 vaccines: Be patient.
With demand outpacing supply and supply still stubbornly low, would-be vaccine patients are likely to find no slots available when they head to the online scheduling tool, even if they qualify.
“We are opening appointments a few days at a time and continuing to remind the public that while appointments will be limited initially, the vaccine will be available to everyone who wants to receive it,” health district spokeswoman Jennifer Sizemore said Tuesday. “As more vaccine and resources become available, we will add additional clinics and appointments.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, the groups eligible to receive the vaccine were seniors age 70 and up, along with the front-line health care workforce previously known as Tier One; public safety and security workers, including police and corrections officers; and front-line community support staff, which includes schoolteachers and social welfare workers.
Slots continually open up and do fill quickly, Sizemore acknowledged, and the heath district’s online portal has experienced technical difficulties.
Sizemore said the health district will announce when availability opens up to additional groups, such as people in the 65-69 age bracket and workers in the front-line supply chain and logistics and commerce and service groups. This will depend on the availability of resources — chiefly, the vaccines themselves.
“Appointments are continually opening up. They just fill up quickly. We can’t give set timelines. We keep saying how much we wish we could,” Sizemore said. “However, we are committed to letting people know as soon as each group is eligible to receive the vaccine.”
The health district issues weekly reports on vaccine activity every Wednesday. As of Jan. 11, the most recent available, the district had given 28,978 shots, about 8,000 more over the week prior.
The last few days, however, have seen more eligible groups and more clinic sites open up, including clinics at the Cashman Center downtown and the Encore resort on the Strip. At full steam, officials predict Cashman can administer up to 4,000 shots per day. Another mega-clinic at the Las Vegas Convention Center is on tap.
But as of Tuesday afternoon, there was no availability at the clinics at Cashman or the health district headquarters, Encore, Western High School, or at the Sun City Anthem community center in Henderson. The scheduler for Cashman said there was no availability through Feb. 27, although Sizemore said that was a product of the scheduling tool and the district wasn’t actually adding appointments that far out.
Clark County Commission Chairwoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick acknowledged some technical difficulties, which she said are a nationwide hurdle, as public health systems’ websites aren’t designed for such high volume. However, she was optimistic about the rollout.
“It’s always a learning process, as it was when we initially did the testing,” she said Monday after leaving the Cashman site, which was mostly vaccinating seniors — which was what she wanted to see.
The district receives weekly shipments of vaccine vials. Dr. Fermin Leguen, the Southern Nevada Health District’s acting chief health officer, said during an online chat last week with Nevada Democratic U.S. Rep. Susie Lee that the state receives about 35,000 doses per week. “That won’t be enough for our needs the way that we’re planning this,” he said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national data shows that Nevada is in the bottom 10 of states for vaccine shipment and administration — dubious rankings that Nevada still had as of Tuesday. State officials, including Gov. Steve Sisolak, have blamed the federal government for creating a bottleneck. They say the week-at-a-time federal distribution practices have made planning difficult.
People who have already received their first dose in the two-shot series can schedule their booster on the health district website starting Jan. 25.
