BREAKING: Quad-Cities Offers Chances to Boost Covid Vaccination Rates
BREAKING NEWS: As the Covid-19 vaccine becomes more readily available, more efforts in the Quad-Cities are taking shape to encourage more people to not throw away their shot.
UnityPoint Clinic – Express Duck Creek is welcoming walk-in vaccine appointments seven days a week between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. Now, anyone age 12 and up can now get their Pfizer vaccine by simply walking in at the Express Duck Creek located at Kimberly and Middle Road,
The Rock Island County Health Department no longer requires appointments for its mass vaccination site at Milan’s Camden Centre.
Residents of both Illinois and Iowa are welcome to receive their vaccine at this location.
“We are trying to do our part to make sure the vaccine can be offered to as many people as possible and we are happy we can now allow anyone to walk in and receive it,” said Tricia Fisher, UnityPoint Clinic Director of Operations. “We want you to feel welcome and make it convenient to get the vaccine and support the community effort of eliminating the virus.”
If you’d prefer to reserve a time slot for faster check-in, you can do so at unitypoint.org. UnityPoint offers Pfizer currently at the Express Duck Creek location to anyone 12 and older. An online scheduling tool at unitypoint.org makes sure you can find the time that works best for you, but if you’re busy and on-the-go, feel free to walk in to the Duck Creek site to get the vaccine.
You can call the scheduling center at 309-779-7979 if you’d prefer to make an appointment over the phone. Express Duck Creek continues to create convenient options to receive the vaccine as soon as possible.
They also offer the Moderna vaccine at the Express Care North Port location in Muscatine for anyone 18 and up with an appointment. Learn
UnityPoint Clinic in Bettendorf is offering walk-in Covid vaccines for anyone 12 and older.
more about the Covid-19 vaccine or schedule your appointment at https://www.unitypoint.org/quadcities/covid-19-vaccine.aspx
The Pfizer vaccine has been given emergency use authorization for ages 12 and older. Pfizer is a two-dose vaccination. Those under 18 need consent from a parent or guardian to receive vaccinations.
“We encourage parents to take advantage of these clinics to get this age group vaccinated. The more people we get vaccinated, the sooner our lives will get back to normal,” says the Rock Island County Health Department website, www.richd.org.
If you try the registration link and cannot get it to work for under the age of 16, adjust the birthdate so that it will work and they can correct it when you come to the clinic at the check in desk.
You no longer need an appointment to get your vaccine at the Rock Island County Health Department’s mass vaccination site at the Camden Centre in Milan.
“We are trying to make getting vaccinated as easy as possible by changing to a walk-in clinic,” the website says. “You don’t need to preregister; however, you could reduce wait times by making an appointment. Please note: If you register through the link, it is not an appointment time, you may still walk in at any time between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.”
The eligibility requirements for those receiving the Covid-19 vaccine have been expanded in Illinois and Iowa.
Not all vaccines will be available every day. Generally, vaccine availability will be:
- Tuesday and Wednesday: Moderna
- Thursday: Johnson & Johnson and either Moderna OR Pfizer.
- Friday and Saturday: Pfizer
This schedule is subject to the health department’s vaccine supply and could change. The health department will post the vaccine schedule weekly on its Facebook page and website.
Tuesday, May 25 will be a Moderna clinic. Clinics are walk in 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. For those getting the Moderna vaccine, you must get the second shot 28 days after the first; and it is 21 days later for the second Pfizer shot.
If you are fully vaccinated (two weeks past second dose) you can take off your mask when you are around other fully vaccinated people, even indoors. When you are in public, you need to wear your mask until the vast majority of the public is fully vaccinated, according to RICHD. This is called herd immunity. Getting as close to herd immunity as possible is what will get us out of this pandemic.
“The vaccine protects you, your family and your community from this deadly virus,” the health department site says. “The vaccine has been shown to inhibit transmission, which keeps the virus from infected more people. The more people who have been vaccinated makes all of us safer from the virus, even those who are too young to be vaccinated.”
“Even if we don’t reach the yet-to-be-known herd immunity threshold, having more people vaccinated will make it less likely that the virus will be circulating in our community,” the site says.
Scientists determine the safety and efficacy of a vaccine through regimented clinical trials, which typically are done in three phases with a growing number of participants. None of these steps were skipped in the development of any of the Covid-19 vaccines, according to RICHD.
The vaccines became available faster because scientists had a head start in their development because of vaccine work during a previous and very similar coronavirus outbreak (SARS-CoV) that, thankfully, did not develop into a pandemic, the site says.
