Vaccine rollout speeding up in Person County

The packed parking lot Friday at Piedmont Community College in Roxboro says it all. After many challenging weeks trying to get through the vaccination groups, the Person County health department has now doubled its effort.

It’s been a slow and steady race for Person County trying to get frontline workers and people 65-and-older vaccinated, but county health director Janet Clayton says things are starting to speed up.

“Each week we are scheduled to receive a base allocation, which has helped planning," Clayton said. "At first, we did not know from week to week.”

Clayton says they went from getting roughly 400 doses a week to now 800 this week. She says the partnership with PCC has a lot to do with it.

“It’s a great space," she said. "It’s large enough to accommodate a large number of people per hour.”

Tabatha Philpott, a nursing supervisor with Person County, says it's been a team effort.

“It takes all of us to make this work because it is a big process,” she said.

The county started offering vaccines Wednesday to Groups 1-4. WRAL's latest data shows only 12% of Person county is fully vaccinated. It’s now getting the supply, but where is the demand?

"We have seen a decrease in the more recent groups that have opened," Clayton said. "In Person County, we did work with our economic development director to reach out to our larger industries. But we are with some of Group 3 and in Group 4, seeing a decrease."

Clayton believes there are a few reasons for this.

"If you look at the compliance of face coverings, as well as social distancing, and where the larger number of cases have been throughout the pandemic, it typically is in the age group that falls in these vaccination groups," she said.

While the county continues to work through all of its setbacks, PCC is playing a critical part in moving this community beyond the pandemic.

"We all, over the year now, have worn many many hats," Philpott said. "We have all been vaccinators, we may have been leaders, we may have been frontline in the clinic."

Alisa Montgomery is in charge of the COVID task force for PCC. She says this is indicative of what PCC means to the community.

"This opportunity brings home the real essence of what community college is all about," she said.

Appointments here that were impacted by Thursday’s storm event are being rescheduled. Residents should be on the look out for future clinics here, and you can register here.