Montgomery County Vaccine Updates: More Doses Needed, New Sites

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA — Montgomery County received an increased allocation in doses this week, but they still need much more in order to run their existing vaccination clinics at full capacity.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 cases continue to steadily drop statewide and within the county. Montgomery County's percent positivity rate is now down to 4.96.

The county has partially vaccinated 129,280 individuals, and fully vaccinated 81,489, as of Monday afternoon.

Here are the latest updates on the COVID-19 vaccine in Montgomery County.

Vaccinating Montco's 1A could take months

Montgomery County is receiving about half of the amount of doses it is requesting from the state on a weekly basis, officials said. More is needed, and the county and state continue to disagree over the fairness of allocations to the southeastern region. Officials estimate that at the current rate, it will take four to five months to get through all of 1A, though the state seems optimistic that a significant increase in vaccine is on the way. MORE.

Vaccine side effects lead schools to close

At least 40 staff members from five different schools in one district called out sick on Friday. Vaccine side effects are common and are a sign that the vaccine is working, health officials say. MORE.

Montgomery County Intermediate Unit vaccinations progressing

School employee vaccinations are ahead of schedule. Statewide, nearly 84,000 teachers and school employees in Pennsylvania had received their Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccination as of Friday. All of the county's school employees should be vaccinated by the end of the month. MORE.

Regional vaccine site leads to conflict between counties, state

Local officials said they met again with the state Department of Health on Wednesday to review plans for a proposed state-run mass vaccine clinic in the southeast. Gov. Wolf had previously said that the southeastern part of the state could receive some of these clinics, but Montgomery County Commissioner Val Arkoosh said she'd prefer those doses instead be allocated to the counties individually.

However, the state is moving ahead with plans to open the single clinic, over the objections of the counties. MORE.

New site opens at Willow Grove

Montgomery County's third community COVID-19 vaccine clinic, which will have a capacity of 10,000 doses a day, opened Friday in Willow Grove. MORE.

Where you're at in line in Montgomery County

To see roughly where you stand in line, you can reference the date you registered with the county's numbers showing daily registrations every day since mid-January. The number of people who signed up before you are the number of people ahead of you in line. MORE.

State says it's focusing on "high-performing" vaccine providers

This ostensibly means the Montgomery County Department of Health (and other county departments of health), although the county says they've only received small increases. Statewide, Pennsylvania has cut its total number of providers from around 1,700 to closer to 200 or 300. MORE.