More than 100,000 people in Washoe County have received COVID-19 vaccinations, but there are many more to go. People are asked to be patient as vaccine supplies are not enough to meet demand.
Health officials today said Washoe County residents, who are 16 years and older with an underlying health condition, can start receiving COVID-19 vaccines at area pharmacies this week.
Local pharmacies — CVS, Smith’s, Walgreens and Walmart — are offering these vaccinations. Underlying health conditions can include obesity, cancer, heart conditions, smoking and diabetes.
The Washoe County Health District will continue to vaccinate eligible Nevadans within the essential worker category and those 65 years and older at the Reno-Sparks Livestock Events Center. Employers are reminded to sign up their businesses for worker vaccines through the health district.
Workers can check to see if their employer has received an invitation for employee vaccination scheduling through a recently opened online database.
County-specific signup information for vaccinations is available at: https://www.immunizenevada.org/nv-covid-fighter, or call 800-401-0946.
COVID-19 dashboard down since Friday
The county stopped updating its COVID-19 dashboard since last week. The website has been providing daily updates on cases and deaths for the entire county. Officials said the downtime was because of accuracy problems.
“The previous version of the COVID-19 dashboard didn’t allow us to make changes to a previous day’s report,” said Scott Oxarart, public information officer for the WCHD. “If we needed to adjust the cases reported yesterday from 100 to 99, we couldn’t change the number on the dashboard today. We would just adjust for it on the next day.
“The reason we would need to do that is because some positive cases and deaths are reported to us but it is determined later that the case isn’t a resident of Washoe County. The new version will allow for that change but we had to shut down the dashboard to allow for this change.”
Vaccination site to move
The county also announced today the vaccination site at the Reno-Sparks Livestock Events Center is moving back to the west side of the facility where testing was done last year.
“We are working on that, and it will be fully operational there by May 18,” said WCHD’s James English.
