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Mecklenburg, Gaston To Begin Vaccinating Residents 75 And Older This Week

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Mecklenburg County will begin vaccinating people 75 and older for COVID-19 starting on Wednesday. Residents must make an appointment either onlineor over the phone and slots are limited. The vaccines will be administered at Bojangles Coliseum.

Starting at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, residents can make appointments onlineor by calling (980) 314-9400 and selecting option 3. The vaccination clinic will administer the Pfizer vaccine and will operate Monday through Saturday each week from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“When you show up, we will be verifying that you have an appointment and we will be verifying your name and date of birth but we will not require any specific form of ID,” Dr. Meg Sullivan, Medical Director for Mecklenburg County Public Health said on Monday.

County officials said they expect there will be between 150 and 250 available appointments each day, depending on the supply of vaccine doses.

As of Monday evening, Mecklenburg County had received 2,925 total doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, according to Gibbie Harris, the county’s public health director. Harris said the county had used 1,600 of those doses as of Saturday evening and expects to receive an additional 1,950 doses in the coming days.

“At the end of each week, we get something from the state that tells us what our allocation is for the next week. So we don’t always know from week to week exactly how much we’ll be receiving,” Harris said.

Gaston County is also set to start vaccinating older residents this week. The county has scheduled a vaccination clinic for Friday at the Gastonia Farmers Market. Anyone 75 years or older can schedule an appointment, along with anyone in Phase 1a of the state’s plan that has not yet received a vaccine.

Phase 1a consists of health care workers who work directly with COVID-19 patients, health care workers who administer the vaccine and staff and residents of long-term care facilities like nursing homes.

To pre-register for Gaston County’s vaccine clinic, residents must call (704) 866-3170. County employees will staff the hotline beginning Tuesday at 8 a.m.

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Claire Donnelly is WFAE's health reporter. She previously worked at NPR member station KGOU in Oklahoma and also interned at WBEZ in Chicago and WAMU in Washington, D.C. She holds a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University and attended college at the University of Virginia, where she majored in Comparative Literature and Spanish. Claire is originally from Richmond, Virginia. Reach her at cdonnelly@wfae.org or on Twitter @donnellyclairee.