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December 4, 2020

Daniel Schludi -Upsplash

News • December 4, 2020

McHenry County Department of Health secures sites for COVID-19 vaccinations

By
Daniel Schludi -Upsplash

MCHENRY COUNTY – With Chicago anticipating an initial shipment of over 20,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, Illinois officials are hopeful vaccinations will begin to be administered as early as the third and fourth weeks of December. The McHenry County Department of Health (MCDH) held a Board meeting on November 23 to discuss the two locations they have secured for drive-thru COVID-19 vaccination dispensing sites with a third one in the works.

Susan Karras, the Public Health Nursing Director for MCDH, stated that the Health Department has entered into a contractual agreement with the Village of Algonquin to use their Public Works facility as one location to distribute the vaccines, with the other confirmed location being the McHenry County Fair Grounds.

Karras explained that the Health Department would be responsible for providing the staffing necessary to administer the vaccines which depending on when the vaccines become available in McHenry County, they would need to recruit volunteers with the help of the Emergency Management Agency (EMA).

It was also mentioned that several schools in the McHenry County area would be willing to serve as additional vaccination sites, if needed.

“Our open PODs are all school locations and there’s five of them in our county. We’ve reached out to all five. They’re all committed to partnering pending their school situation when the time comes. So, if they’re going to be hybrid or what, we’re just not sure, but they’re committed to working with us and what that means is, will we have access to inside the building or would we use their parking lot as like a drive-thru situation as well,” Karras said.

Among one of the many challenges McHenry County will encounter according to Karras, is who takes priority to receive the vaccinations first.

“So, some of the challenges that we’re anticipating with this mass vaccination, and this happened during H1N1, is the prioritization. The CDC and IDPH, you know, they provide the priority list, but they do give the local Health Departments some leeway on how we’re going to prioritize more locally within those groups,” Karras said.

“Prioritization will be a big challenge for us in making clear it is communicated very clearly, as well which leads into the public messaging and communication. You know, just providing factual information, again, has been a challenge from the very beginning of this pandemic. I don’t see it changing with the vaccine.”

Besides health care workers and first responders, it appears that long-term care facilities are on the high priority list to receive the COVID-19 vaccinations within McHenry County, pending a list from the state, of the facilities that opted into this agreement with MCDH.

“Just to kind of give you a little bit of what’s going on, long term-care facilities, they’re considered close points of delivery which typically what that means is we provide them with the vaccine that they would need to administer within their facility to their staff and to their residents,” Karras explained. “With this mass vaccination, the federal government has entered into contracts with CVS pharmacy as well as Walgreens and part of that contract, they are to deliver, require the vaccines to long-term care facilities that opt into this and they would send in their own staff to vaccinate the staff and residents of the facilities. That removes that responsibility off of the staff of the facilities so that they can concentrate on the care that needs to occur during that time.”

McHenry County will require those who administer the two dose COVID-19 vaccine to register patient information into I-CARE, or the Illinois Comprehensive Automated Immunization Registry Exchange.

“No matter where you go in Illinois, you will know that person, what they had with their first dose, when they had that first dose and what that manufactured dose is so that you can appropriately give it at the right time and the right manufactured dose, it’ll all be in [I-CARE]. It’s going to take a lot of effort to get that messaging out there, what that really means, because I think most people think that if it’s a COVID vaccine, then I can get any COVID vaccine and that’s not true,” Karras said.

MCDH has purchased an ultra-cold freezer to store the vaccines in, also indicating that they have the capacity at the Health Department for the volume of vaccines, to cover McHenry County. However, they did also explain that they would need to enter into a contract to order dry ice in bulk in the instance that they do use the school PODs as vaccination locations.

MCDH Board Member Kyle Marcussen asked during the meeting, if it would be mandatory for McHenry County staff to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Karras responded that while they do mandate McHenry County staff members to receive the influenza and other vaccines, there have not been any specific conversations relating to mandating the COVID-19 vaccine as of yet.