In Sioux County, the Local Public Health Agency, Community Health Partners, is working collaboratively with the four Area Health Systems and Promise Community Health Center to distribute and administer COVID-19 vaccine.

On Thursday, February 25, Community Health Partners received notice that Sioux County was selected as 1 of the 17 counties eligible to receive an allocation of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine for use in phase 1b, tier 2 populations which include workers in food, agriculture, distribution, and manufacturing sectors who live or work in settings that made social distancing difficult.

The Sioux County Emergency Preparedness Coalition held an emergency meeting on Friday, February 26 to align efforts to administer the 900 doses of vaccine to eligible employees, in addition to the efforts underway targeting individuals 65 and older, by the end of the week of March 5, as directed by IDPH.

Community Health Partners and health system employees worked with major employers and have plans in place to hold vaccination clinics this week with most clinics taking place March 3 – 5.

“The collaborative effort between public health, emergency management and all health care systems and the willingness of staff to do whatever needs to get done during the pandemic has been remarkable, and this is another illustration of that.”   Kim Westerholm, Director of Community Health Services.

The vaccines will be given on site to employees at the following locations:

Agropur
Center Fresh
Formosa Foods
Perdue
Premium Iowa Pork
SIG
Smithfield Orange City
Smithfield Sioux Center

Sioux County is following the Iowa Department of Public Health orders for COVID-19 vaccine administration and is administering vaccine to priority groups as it becomes available. This week Sioux County has expanded vaccine priority groups to include Childcare and PK-12 Teachers and School Staff in addition to individuals age 65 and older.

If you are 65+ or a teacher or on staff at a PK-12 school, sign-up at your local health system or at Hy-Vee using links listed on www.siouxcovid.org.

If you need help signing up please call your local health system or public health.

As more vaccine becomes available, the priority groups will continue to expand. Vaccine updates will be shared via media releases (newspaper, radio, and social media), health system websites and social media, and will be posted to www.siouxcovid.org.