On checking the web sites for Cone Health and Guilford County, they both have messages stating that all their appointments are currently filled. The Cone Health site allows persons to sign up for their wait list. All the information we have previously shared is still true and repeated below. NC did announce that they will start offering vaccination to educators, particularly child care providers and K-12 teachers. It is a little uncertain though, how these vaccines will be delivered since there was an interruption in the supply chain for vaccines and many appointments scheduled for last week were delayed. Additionally allocation of vaccines has been less than desired and persons in the earlier vaccine eligible groups have not been completely vaccinated.
Guilford County advised as of today that they will make vaccine appointments as they receive additional vaccine allocations. Eligible persons may sign up for vaccine appointments (when available – starting 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.) Eligible persons continue to be health care providers, long term care residents and those 65 years of age or older. Sign up may be done at www.healthyguilford.com (Email address required) or by phone 336-641-7944, option 2. At the current time all vaccination appointments are filled and they advise staying tuned in for future appointment dates. The vaccination sites are still the same including Mount Zion Baptist church, High Point Community University Center and Greensboro Coliseum. No walk in appointments are allowed. People can subscribe to updates about vaccine availability and appointment openings from the Guilford Health Department by texting GC19 (or GC19S for Spanish) to 888777.
Cone Health has a wait list for vaccination that can be accessed through their web site https://tinyurl.com/1exuz1of The Cone vaccine information site also has links to other county sites. Cone does not want their patients to call their individual provider offices for vaccination appointments, however some other Health organizations like Wake Forest Baptist Health and Novant are allowing sign ups/information for their patients through their on-line charts.
Friends are also advised that unfortunately vaccination does not eliminate the need for masking, physical distancing and hand washing since data on transmissibility after vaccination are not sufficient to guarantee protection either for the vaccinated person or for the persons they are in contact with.
It has now been confirmed that there are several COVID virus variants circulating in the US. There is believed to be no cause for concern about greater potential for severity of illness, however concerns have be raised about greater infectivity. This is another reason to continue to continue current masking, physical distancing and hand washing precautions
One further piece of good news is that the Affordable Health care marketplace is now open until May 15, 2021 to allow persons who have lost their health care coverage during the pandemic to sign up. The place to start researching that option on-line is Healthcare.gov