Improvements in the rate of positive COVID tests and the decrease in hospitalization rates in NC have stabilized at the lowest rates since November although now infectious disease doctors are concerned about increases that may happen around the spring break schedule. There continues to be concern about more infectious variant virus types known to be circulating in NC.
Friends are encouraged to read new CDC guidance for vaccinated persons at: https://tinyurl.com/3cs446d8 These primarily open up guidelines for small (family) gatherings of fully vaccinated people interacting with non-vaccinated persons of low risk (eg. grandparents and grandchildren). These more relaxed guidelines don’t yet apply to medium or large group gatherings. Persons, vaccinated or not are still encouraged to wear masks, physically distance and wash hands frequently when in public places or in medium/ large groups of people. Symptomatic (cough fever, shortness of breath) persons still need to be tested and treated regardless of vaccination status.
On checking the web sites for Cone Health and Guilford County today (3/9/21), they both have messages stating that all their appointments are currently filled. The Cone Health site allows persons to sign up for vaccine updates by giving an Email address. Another resource now available is at: https://vaccinefinder.org which tracks what pharmacies have available vaccine within 10 miles of your zip code. A quick check of this resource today shows no vaccine at the pharmacies close to my house though. Walgreens will let you sign up for a vaccine at Walgreens.com after setting up an account with them. The NC site which helps persons find a vaccination site is https://myspot.nc.gov/. All the information we have previously shared is still true and repeated below. NC has continued vaccinating Groups 1, 2 and 3 (educators, particularly child care providers and K-12 teachers as well as other frontline essential workers). March 24 has been designated to begin allowing vaccination of group 4 here in NC if adequate vaccine is available.
Guilford County 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. Sign-up may be done at www.healthyguilford.com (An email address required) or by phone 336-641-7944, option 2. The vaccination sites still include Mount Zion Baptist Church, High Point Community University Center and Greensboro Coliseum. A new mass vaccine site is at Four Seasons Town Centre, where appointments can be made at www.GSOmassvax.org or 1-888-675-4567. This site plans to provide up to 3000 vaccinations per day which will be supplied by the federal government ( not taking any from NC supplies). No walk in appointments are allowed at any of the sites mentioned and all persons have to be in the groups which are currently being vaccinated to qualify.
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/43pxu5fp 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.
The Affordable Health care marketplace is 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