Another 2,500 vaccine doses allocated to clinic

CLOVIS — As of Monday Clovis' vaccine clinic administered all of the COVID-19 vaccine doses allocated to Roden Smith and Clovis Family Healthcare last week. The clinic will continue to run this week as the state has allocated another 2,500 doses.

“Last week it went really well. It wasn't the ideal scheduling system doing it internally trying to schedule 2,500 people in a couple days notice, so we are happy we're set up on the state's system now,” Dr. Micah Lansford, owner and head of Roden Smith Pharmacy said.

The clinic administered 2,300 vaccines last week, and the remaining 200 were used Monday morning. The leftover doses were mostly a result of no-shows and individuals who were unavailable for the time they had received.

“We got another allocation of 2,500. It was supposed to arrive today (Monday) but it didn't so we administered everything we could today and had to cancel the first two hours of tomorrow because it arrives at about 9 a.m.,” Lansford said. “We're basically the first delivery for FedEx, and we have to wait for a portion of that to thaw.”

Registration will now be handled through the state’s website at cvvaccine.nmhealth.org. Anybody without Internet access can call (855) 600-3453, option 0 for vaccine questions, and then option 4 for tech support.

After doing research on population and age-specific response to the vaccine, Lansford estimates that approximately 20,000 people in Clovis are eligible and willing to get the vaccine.

“Based off of those numbers I think we've vaccinated about 20% of the willing and eligible population, including what the hospital has done and what the other places have done so far,” he said.

While New Mexico is in phase 1B, the state recently changed guidelines to target specific groups within 1B without creating a separate sub-group.

Initially frontline essential workers were being included in the current phase, but now the state is prioritizing those 75+, and those 16+ with underlying conditions. This resulted in some state-wide confusion as clinics for teacher vaccinations in places like Albuquerque and Santa Fe were started and then canceled as the state made their specifications.

By having access to the state's registration list, Lansford and the rest of the clinic will be able to provide vaccines to a more streamlined population instead of working through the Roden Smith website.

Lansford noted that the state's system is not the easiest given that it is all online. This makes it hard for those without internet to register and be notified and for the elderly community, who is the main population currently being vaccinated, to navigate unfamiliar online services.

He is working with the state to make an informational video that explains the process step-by-step, from registering to waiting for an appointment time, to hopefully better serve the elderly community. Lansford added that now that they are going through the state's registration list, they do not control or get to check who has been verified to receive the vaccine.

Some things to remember when registering for the COVID-19 vaccine clinic:

Walmart Pharmacy in Portales will be administering COVID-19 vaccines starting this week, and has received 100 initial doses.

During a news conference Monday Dr. Tracie Collins, Secretary-Designate of the New Mexico Department of Health, and Human Services Secretary David Scrase addressed how the vaccine distribution was going in the state:

• New Mexico has the third-highest vaccine administration rate in the country, with vaccine administration nearly doubling in pace over the last two weeks.

• Approximately 700,000-800,000 New Mexicans are eligible for vaccine, of those eligible in Phase 1A and the first two groups in Phase1b about 150,000 are 75+ years old, 466,000 have chronic condition(s), and 138,000 are healthcare workers.

• New Mexico is receiving 25,000-30,000 vaccine doses from the federal government every week, and is administering close to 7,000 every day.

• Aside from an incident in Clayton where 75 doses were thrown out after getting too hot, the state has not had to dispose of any other vaccines because of handling mistakes.