HARWICH – The Harwich Select board met Tuesday and discussed where the town stands in the vaccination process.
Currently, Barnstable County is in charge of distributing the vaccine allocated to the county by the state to the 15 towns on Cape Cod.
The county is receiving 975 doses of the Pfizer Vaccine weekly from the state to vaccinate all residents currently included in Phase One and Two of the state’s vaccination plan.
“The 975 doses on the Cape doesn’t go very far, we have hundreds of thousands of residents,” said Harwich Health Director Meggan Eldridge
Barnstable County currently has vaccination clinics, that are set up on a weekly basis at the Cape Cod Fairgrounds and the Cape Cod Melody Tent and are working on developing one in Eastham.
One of the difficulties that comes with the Pfizer Vaccine is that it has to be kept frozen and once it’s defrosted, health officials only have a matter of hours to administer it before it spoils.
“Once you get it out of the freezer, you have to have the appointments lined up, and once you puncture a vial you can’t put it back in the fridge, so it’s a pretty intense process,” said Eldridge.
Another difficulty with the Pfizer vaccine is that once it is delivered it is not transportable eliminating the possibility for mobile clinics.
“It’s a delicate vaccine so doing mobile visits or having a nurse do home visits with the vaccine right now isn’t possible because you can’t shake this vaccine,” said Eldridge
Eligible residents can try to sign up for vaccination at CVS, Walgreens, and Stop and Shop but chances are currently slim for Cape Codders.
“Lately I’ve been online and there is no vaccine within 50 miles of Harwich,” said Eldridge.
Those looking to get the vaccine quickly can travel to the 3 mass vaccination sites the state has set up.
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