I am going to be as frank as I can so you get a very clear picture of what Tiverton is doing with respect to vaccines. Believe me, I wish we had vaccines available for everyone but as of right now we are getting a very limited supply to distribute. Today we are vaccinating 80 individuals in Bristol (all over the age of 75).
We are creating a list at Town Hall of those who are 75 and over who are calling in to register with names /DOB /address/ and phone numbers. We used what lists we had for the vaccines given in this first allocation as that is what the Department of Health suggested, but since then, we have created lists from the calls we are receiving. When we get final authorization of weekly vaccine allocations we will sort the list oldest to youngest and register those individuals for appointments. As you might imagine, there is no method of Town Hall staff to validate medical conditions and we certainly do not want to create any records of personal health issues for residents. Right now vaccines are given in Bristol at Colt State Park but we are advocating with the State to have them given here in town along with Little Compton residents.
We have been told to expect 110 vaccine doses every week beginning 2/18/21 for four weeks Those selected in the first four weeks will be given a second shot four weeks later. We have no further information from the State beyond the next eight weeks.
We have 1,850 seniors on our voter list 75 years of age and older plus some 150 more over 75 who stayed here in Tiverton that normally reside elsewhere during winter months. At this rate it will be nearly eight months just to vaccinate the population of 75 and older in Tiverton with first and second shots unless the
State provides more vaccines than what they allocated above.
We are building an online web portal for all residents to register but again, we will select people based on age oldest to youngest when we receive notice from the State of vaccine allocations granted to Tiverton. We hope to have this web based registry up and running by early next week. We will also create a phone
bank for people who do not have internet to call in at certain days and times to register.
We know this is not what everyone wants to hear but it is what we have been told to do by the State. As more information and updates about additional vaccines come to light we will post to the Town’s web page.
I suggest contacting your medical professional and or your pharmacist to see if and when they may be allowed to provide vaccines. I am hoping other venues will be allowed beyond just the Town to provide these critical vaccines.
I do hope this information was helpful. Please do follow our website as we roll out a web based portal next week. We will try and keep information as current as we can.
Regards,
Chris Cotta
Town Administrator