NEW HANOVER COUNTY — New Hanover County Health and Human Services announced it will have access to 1,000 vaccines this week. 500 will be administered to the community on Thursday, and the other 500, in partnership with Cape Fear Clinic, will go to outreach events for marginalized communities.
Limited by supply, vaccine appointments filled in around 20 minutes after being announced on Monday, Feb. 1, around 1:33 p.m. They were filled on a first-come, first-serve basis by 1:54 p.m.
Adults 65 and older and healthcare workers in Groups 1 and 2 are eligible to receive the vaccine. The county split 250 vaccine appointments between the call center and the online schedulers.
“We are glad to be able to offer an online scheduling component for residents to make the appointments even more accessible, but it’s also important to the county that we ensure residents who don’t have easy access to the internet can still call in to receive an appointment,” said Donna Fayko, health and human services director. “We do expect these appointments to go fast – because demand is high but our supply is low – and we can only book appointments for the number of vaccines we have received. So we ask for our community’s patience as we work quickly and efficiently with the vaccine available to us.”
As additional supplies are added weekly, public health will open more appointments.
In addition to public health, New Hanover Regional Medical Center opens appointments based on supply. Residents can sign up for email alerts from NHRMC here. Additional information about NHRMC vaccinations can be found at nhrmc.org/coronavirus or by calling (910) 662-2020.
Folks can check in with Wilmington Health vaccine availability by logging onto wilmingtonhealth.com/covidvaccine.
According to New Hanover County Health and Human Services, over 14,500 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine — both first and second shots — have been administered. With healthcare partners NHRMC, Wilmington Health, MedNorth and Cape Fear Clinic, around 25,968 total doses of the vaccine have been given in New Hanover County, according to the state’s dashboard.
Tips on booking appointments with NHC public health:
Booking Online: signupgenius.com/go/nhcvaccine
For the online scheduling system, only one appointment can be made at a time and a unique email is required for each appointment (if someone doesn’t have an email address, they can call the coronavirus call center at 910-798-6800 to book an appointment). After selecting a location and time from the scheduling system, the appointment will be held while entering contact information, including verification of the person’s vaccine group (Groups 1 and 2 are currently eligible). The online scheduler is available in English and Spanish.
Booking by Phone: 910-798-6800
- If you call and experience a busy signal, please call back. A busy signal indicates that all available lines are full, but the call center is still operational. So continue calling back until the line rings.
- When the line rings, you will first hear an informational message and then you will need to stay on the line for the next available call center operator. You may have to wait on hold for a bit, depending on how many people are in the queue ahead of you, so please be patient.
- Spanish interpreters are available in the call center to assist with booking appointments.
Have ideas or tips? Email info@portcitydaily.com
If you want to read more from Port City Daily, subscribe now and then sign up for our newsletter, Wilmington Wire, and get the headlines delivered to your inbox every morning.
