COVID-19 vaccine: These retail stores, pharmacies and supermarkets are offering immunizations
By Catherine Park and Austin Williams
Published
Dr. Anthony Fauci gives COVID-19 update on COVID-19 and Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
LOS ANGELES - Amid the roll-out of coronavirus vaccines, various retailers have answered the call to help immunize eligible the public, including Walmart, Costco and Publix.
President Joe Biden has pledged to deliver more than 100 million injections in his first 100 days in office and suggested it s possible the U.S. could reach 1.5 million shots a day. To help with that lofty goal, certain grocery stores and retail stores are offering their services to help administer vaccines in select states.
COVID deaths and infections in CT nursing homes decline as more residents are vaccinated
AP Photo
Jeanne Peters, 95, a resident at The Reservoir nursing home in West Hartford, received a COVID-19 vaccine on Dec. 18. The Reservoir was among the first nursing homes in Connecticut to begin vaccinating residents against coronavirus.
For the first time in several weeks, the number of COVID-19 deaths and infections in long-term care facilities in Connecticut decreased sharply raising the possibility that systematic vaccinations are curbing the virus’s deadly path through the state’s most vulnerable residents.
Over the week of Jan. 6-12, there were 85 deaths in nursing homes and 312 residents who were infected both numbers lower than during previous weeks. For the period of Dec. 30 to Jan. 5, there were 120 deaths due to COVID-19 and 483 infections. The week before, there were 126 deaths and 382 infections.
BY PAUL HUGHES REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
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Mary Lou Galushko gives Jeanne Peters, 95, a rehab patient at The Reservoir, a nursing facility, the first COVID-19 vaccination at the nursing home Friday, Dec. 18, 2020, in West Hartford, Conn. (AP Photo/Stephen Dunn, Pool)
HARTFORD State residents age 75 and older can now register for appointments for COVID-19 vaccinations starting Monday.
State officials had no counts Thursday on the number of sign ups and appointments scheduled, but an estimated 277,000 people fall in this age category that is the first group eligible to be immunized in the second phase of the state vaccination program.
Acting Public Health Commissioner Deirde S. Gifford said a high percentage of this population is expected to choose to get vaccinated.
The urgency of vaccinating nursing home residents is evident in the numbers. The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed the lives of more than 136,000 residents and employees of long-term care facilities in the U.S. alone, accounting for nearly 40% of all U.S. deaths linked to the disease.
Echoing that urgency, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar declared in mid-December, “We can have every nursing home patient vaccinated in the United States by Christmas.” Yet, by Christmas, most states had barely begun.
Other states were still far behind when West Virginia became the first state to finish round one of the two-dose vaccine series in nursing homes on Dec. 30.
Gov. Ned Lamont, empowered by nine months of near-complete control of state government and enjoying wide support for his handling of the coronavirus crisis, is no longer the same chief executive who presided over an uneven first year in office marked by a failed plan to add highway tolls in the state.