Encampment vaccine clinic back on

Vaccinations against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) have been, by and large, successful in Carbon County despite a brief shortage caused by nationwide weather issues last week.

In a February 17 interview with the Saratoga Sun, Memorial Hospital of Carbon County (MHCC) CEO Ken Harman stated that the vaccination rates for the county were sitting at 20 percent for people over the age of 21. While this doesn’t seem like much, especially when considering that 85 percent of the population needs to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, it is quite the lead compared to other locations that are reporting only two or three percent vaccination success.

Harman contributes this vaccination success to the cooperation between MHCC and Carbon County Public Health and the ongoing testing throughout the county. MHCC, in recent months, has conducted drive-through testing clinics in Rawlins while the Platte Valley Clinic in Saratoga and Carbon County Public Health have continued testing as well.

As of February 22, there were 66 active cases of COVID-19 in Carbon County with three cases pending. Since the pandemic began nearly a year ago, Carbon County has reported 1,298 lab-tested cases of the coronavirus.

On February 18, Carbon County Public Health held their second vaccination clinic in the Valley. While the department was able to successfully hold their clinic at the Platte Valley Community Center, it led to a shortage of vaccines for the vaccine clinic in Encampment which was rescheduled.

On Monday afternoon, Jacquelin Wells sent out a notice that the vaccine clinic for Encampment had been rescheduled for February 26 and would be held at the Grand Encampment Opera House from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

According to Wells, as of Monday, Carbon County Public Health had administered a total of 3,486 Moderna vaccines with 2,443 first doses and 1,043 second doses of the vaccine.