Guilford County advised today that they have 3400 doses of vaccine available by allocation this week and eligible persons may sign up for vaccine appointments starting Tuesday February 15 at 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eligible persons are still health care providers, long term care residents and those 65 years of age or older. Sign up may be done by phone; call 336-641-7944, option 2 or at www.healthyguilford.com (Email address required). 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/4rlh3tlw
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 through their on-line patient 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 no cause at this time about greater potential for severity of illness however concerns have been 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 is Healthcare.gov