OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — The Douglas County Health Department says some people are making appointments for their COVID-19 vaccine, but not showing up.
"We are starting to see some no-shows in our vaccine clinics, and so between 5 to 15 percent, and I would just encourage the public. I understand that people may have signed up on different sites but it’s really not fair for those who are not able to get an appointment if people are doing double appointments," Dr. Adi Pour, the Douglas County Health Director said.
Health officials say this can affect the timeline of herd immunity as well as the state's vaccine rollout plan.
"The amount of vaccine we use versus what we have in surplus impacts the amount we get on the next shipment, so we really want to get all of those vaccines into people so that we can continue to have an excellent pipeline of vaccines going forward and we don’t end up stockpiling it and slowing down the process," said Dr. Kelley Cawcutt, Associate Director of Infection and Prevention with Nebraska Medicine.
To avoid excess doses at the end of the day, the health department said they were distributing the extras to critical care infrastructure workers. Now that they've finished the list of those workers, they opened up more walk-ins to avoid throwing doses out.
Health officials ask that if you can't make your vaccine appointment to call and cancel or reschedule.
"Life events happen. If you can’t make the appointment, but you still want the vaccine, please just call and reschedule. That’s an easy thing and it helps us to potentially get someone else into that slot," Cawcutt said.
