The Christian County Health Department will provide a regional COVID-19 vaccine clinic at the James E. Bruce Convention Center in Hopkinsville, health officials announced. It will administer the Moderna vaccine.
“We are currently in phase 1a, which includes all health care workers,” department spokeswoman Amanda Sweeney said in a news release.
The Bruce Center clinic will start Jan. 12, running from 8 a.m to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for the first week of the clinic and then from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday in subsequent weeks.
“We are only allotted a certain amount every week, so if we happen to use all of the vaccine on Monday and Tuesday, that would cancel the vaccine clinic for Wednesday and Thursday,” she said.
The Bruce Center clinic managed by the health department is one of 33 regional vaccine clinic sites in Kentucky. It replaces the health department on Canton Street as a vaccination site.
The Bruce Center and Baptist Health in Madisonville are the two westernmost regional vaccine clinics in Kentucky.
Any health worker in the region who is not currently signed up to be vaccinated at their workplace may schedule an appointment. County Health Director Kayla Bebout said state officials recently provided an online link for health workers to access a map of the state’s regional vaccine clinics so they can sign up for an appointment in their area.
Also, the local health department sent the link to sign up at the Hopkinsville clinic “to all health department directors in all counties from Ballard to Warren to Owensboro.”
After first announcing the local clinic Monday afternoon, the health department said too many people who are not in phase 1a for the vaccine were going online to schedule an appointment. The online registration is currently intended only for health workers.
“If quantities permit, we will gradually move to phase 1b (for first responders, school employees and anyone age 70 or older),” Sweeney said.
Those age 70 and older may request an appointment online for vaccination when phase 1b begins in Christian County.
Jennie Stuart Health and the health department received their first shipments of vaccine doses the week of Dec. 21. The hospital began vaccinating its employees on Dec. 23. The following week, the health department began vaccinating non-hospital personnel who fall within phase 1a.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
