COLUMBUS, Ind. — COVID-19 vaccinations in Bartholomew County have started to bounce back after a snowstorm last week delayed shipments of vaccines and forced the closure of dozens of vaccination sites in Indiana, including clinics operated by Columbus Regional Health and the Bartholomew County Health Department.
CRH and the Bartholomew County Health Department closed their vaccination sites Tuesday and scrambled to reschedule hundreds of appointments as a snowstorm swept across the state.
The end result was a steep decline in the number of Bartholomew County residents getting vaccinated, state records show.
On Tuesday, just 22 Bartholomew County residents received COVID-19 vaccinations, down from 387 on Monday, according to the Indiana State Department of Health.
The state figures do not specify where individuals get vaccinated. The vaccinations on Tuesday may have occurred in another county, where sites may have still been open, or at Walmart, Kroger or other retail pharmacies that are administering COVID-19 shots in Indiana.
However, the pace of vaccinations drastically increased on Wednesday and Thursday after the clinics operated by CRH and the Bartholomew County Health Department reopened.
On Wednesday, 459 Bartholomew County residents got vaccinated, followed by 446 people on Thursday.
CRH administered 1,053 vaccines at its clinic near the hospital campus in Columbus on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, said Dr. Slade Crowder, CRH.
Clinic staff, along with the help of some volunteers, rescheduled 140 appointments due to the icy conditions, said CRH spokeswoman Kelsey DeClue.
“I’m pretty happy with that given the snow and the challenges,” Crowder said.
The Bartholomew County Health Department vaccinated 372 people from Sunday to Thursday, said Amanda Organist, the department’s director of nursing.
“We had 120 (people) scheduled for Tuesday and attempted to reach all individuals,” Organist said. “Some did not have voicemail set up/full. All individuals reached have been rescheduled or found another location.”
The crippling snowstorm, which barreled across much of the U.S. last week, hampered vaccine distribution across the country just as the vaccination effort was gathering speed, The Associated Press reported.
Across a large swath of the nation, the snowy, slippery weather either led to the closing of vaccination sites or held up the necessary shipments of vaccines, with delays expected for days, according to wire reports.
In Indiana, more than 80 clinics were closed on Tuesday, disrupting some 43,000 appointments and causing a delay in vaccine shipments from Moderna Inc.
Both developments have caused state officials to push back plans to expand vaccine eligibility to people in the next age group, 60-64, for about a week.
“We have worked with those clinics to reschedule their patients as quickly as possible,” Dr. Lindsay Weaver, the state health department’s chief medical officer said during a news briefing on Wednesday. “This includes new appointments and adding extra days to the clinic schedules to ensure there are no delays in getting vaccines in arms.”
Locally, the Bartholomew County Health Department has confirmed that the shipment of vaccines from Moderna it expected to receive this week was pushed back until Monday, Organist said.
The delayed shipment, however, has not caused any appointment to be rescheduled.
CRH’s shipment of Moderna vaccines also was delayed until Monday, though the hospital system is primarily administering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Crowder said.
The Bartholomew County Health Department and Windrose Health Network in Edinburgh sent CRH some doses of the Moderna vaccine, Crowder said.
“Our shipment was delayed but the health department Windrose helped us out to cover until we get our shipment.”
Overall, 11,026 Bartholomew County residents had received their first COVID-19 shot as of 5 a.m. Friday morning, or about 13.2% of the county’s population, state records show.
In addition, 4,454 people in the county had received their second shot and were considered fully vaccinated as of Thursday, or about 5.3% of the county’s population.
