PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Montgomery County residents over the age of 65 can now preregister for the COVID-19 vaccine.
Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh said anyone in the Phase 1A group can register for the vaccine on the county’s website. For now, only people 65 and older can preregister for Phases 1B and 1C.
She expects people who qualify for Phases 1B and 1C through their employer can sign up by the end of the week.
Arkoosh said a major hurdle has been not knowing how many vaccine doses to expect week to week from the federal program handling the virus. If they knew what they were getting, she said, they could schedule more shots.
“There’s just been a terrible lack of coordination from this administration and poor communication, so I look forward to all of these things getting better,” she said. “Better coordination and better planning and some certainty would be so helpful. If we knew with certainty how much vaccine we were going to get for next week, then we could release more appointments for next week.”
Arkoosh hopes that improves in the coming weeks as the Biden administration takes over.
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Arkoosh estimated there are about 10,500 people in 1A in Montgomery County who still need to be vaccinated.
As for 1B, she said there are 66,793 over the age of 75. There are about 16,598 teachers and staff — just at public schools — and about 1,400 police officers in the county.
Arkoosh said the positivity rate in the county is holding steady around 10.5%.
So far, they’re not seeing a holiday spike as significant as the one they saw after Thanksgiving.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending states immediately expand vaccinations to people 65 and older. Operation Warp Speed is expected to officially add that recommendation into the CDC’s distribution plan soon.