Miami County to host 2nd large scale vaccine clinic

MIAMI COUNTY — As Miami County’s Health Department works to get the vaccine to people the reliance on volunteers is critical.

On Feb. 19, the county will hold its second large scale vaccine clinic. It will be at Edison State in Piqua as part of an effort to expand the locations it uses for these clinics.

>> Miami Valley vaccines: Where you can schedule a vaccination

After receiving only 200 doses the county will once again get 400 COVID-19 vaccines, the same as it did when it held its first large clinic.

As the health department conducts its clinic it will still be giving out second doses at the office too.

“We were able to do that and we will be able to do that in the future thanks 100 percent to the number of volunteers that we’ve been getting,” Miami County Health Department Commissioner Dennis Propes said. “If it wasn’t for those volunteers there’s no way we could be running a second shot clinic and a first shot clinic in at the same time in two different locations.”

As the county vaccinates more people the need for volunteers becomes even more important. The volunteers fill a variety of roles.

“We actually have a class of nursing students from Wright State University help us a lot on Friday doing a lot of the vaccinations,” Propes said. “We have some retired nurses and just members of the community that wanted to help doing all kinds of positions.”

Some of the volunteers work to help people park and direct them where to go. They also may check-in people or help schedule second appointments.

No matter the background Propes said the help is important. To register to be a volunteer he directs people to this website: https://www.ohioresponds.odh.ohio.gov/.

“We ask them to go on the Ohio Responds website and sign up for the Miami County medical reserve corps,” Propes said. “Our volunteer coordinator will get with them to make sure they have all the necessary information they need for them to be a volunteer for us.”

Registration for vaccines through the health department are closed and will reopen Feb. 18 at 9 a.m. For information on getting registered you can go to this website: https://www.miamicountyhealth.net/vaccine-registration.

Cox Media Group