Wood

Wood

LAURINBURG — Scotland Health Care System successfully administered nearly 700 community vaccines last week. This included almost 500 vaccinations on Friday in a drive-through community vaccination event.

Scotland Health’s goal is to vaccinate the community quickly and efficiently as soon as vaccines are made available by the state in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19 and bring the pandemic to an end.

“I need the community to understand that since things start at the federal level, then they roll to the state before they come to the county … so things will continue to be very fluid over the next few weeks,” Greg Wood, president and CEO at SHCS, said on WLNC. “We are committed at the Health Care System to share as much information as quickly and as transparently as possible.”

On Monday afternoon, Scotland Health received word that the drive-through community vaccination event scheduled for Friday will be able to proceed, so all appointments for Friday will remain scheduled as planned.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services also shared new information on Monday afternoon concerning vaccine allocation. Beginning next week, each county will be allocated a minimum number of vaccine doses based on county population density. This minimum allotment amount will be in place for the next three weeks.

“The other most important thing that the community needs to understand is that we are many months away from getting everybody sufficiently vaccinated because there is not sufficient vaccines available yet,” Wood said, “so continuing safe behaviors is critical …”

Once Scotland Health receives word of this new minimum allotment amount, it will resume taking appointments for those persons aged 65 and up. For updates, check the Scotland Health Facebook page and scotlandhealth.org.