The public vaccination site run by the Montgomery County Health Department is closing and vaccines will be administered at the department’s West Market Street offices beginning next week, officials have announced.
Vaccines will be administered for the last time Friday at the former Save A Lot building on East South Boulevard, more than five months after the site opened.
Beginning next Wednesday, shots will be available five days a week at the department’s new location in the former Crawfordsville Family Care building behind Dr. John Walker and Dr. Dane Mishler’s dental practices.
The vaccine clinic will run from 3 to 6 p.m. Monday and Wednesday except holidays, 10 a.m. to noon and 1 to 3 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to noon Saturday. The health department will reopen to the public on Fridays.
Staff is working to accommodate appointments that were already booked at the South Boulevard site.
“Everyone will still get their vaccine and if we have to stay and get someone vaccinated that we can’t move, that’s what we’ll do,” MCHD administrator Amber Reed said.
Appointments can be scheduled online at vaccine.coronavirus.in.gov. Walk-ins are accepted during clinic hours. Anyone 12 and older is eligible for a vaccine.
The department held 62 clinics in the former grocery store, handling more than 14,000 appointments, according to statistics Reed provided. Volunteers put in over 4,500 hours assisting the staff.
Save A Lot operator Niemann Foods donated the building to the department, which began vaccinating residents in January. B&L Engineering purchased the building in April, but allowed the department to continue using it as a vaccination site.
Reed said moving the clinic efficiently consolidates resources. “In some way, it signals we’re making progress in the vaccinations,” she said.
The number of Montgomery County residents fully vaccinated topped 12,000 Tuesday, according to the Indiana State Department of Health. The figure represents 36.8% of those eligible.
Local officials have set a goal of vaccinating 70% of the population. That means about 11,000 people still need to roll up their sleeves in order to help achieve herd immunity in the county.
Following a recent decline in people receiving their first shot, the number of first-dose appointments is picking up, Reed said. She said the county has also seen a “good response” from 12-to-15-year olds.
Moderna said Tuesday its COVID-19 vaccine strongly protects kids as young as 12, a step that could put the shot on track to become the second option for that age group in the U.S.
The company said it will submit its teen data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other global regulators early next month.
Right now, Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine is the only one approved in the U.S. for people under 18.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report
