SALUDA COUNTY, S.C. — People in Saluda County have able to receive the coronavirus vaccine after hundreds of vaccines have been made available to the community.
"We are getting more vaccine into the county," said Josh Morton, the Emergency Management Director for Saluda County. "South Carolina DHEC did come in last week and conduct a second shot clinic as related to the clinic that they held back in January."
According to SCDHEC's vaccine dashboard, Saluda County has received more than 700 vaccines.
Right now, Morton believes SC DHEC is working on providing another clinic in the county in the next couple of days.
The county has been talks with Self Regional Healthcare in Greenwood County to hold additional clinics.
"Those events are critical for us with us not having a hospital here in the county. Relying on DHEC to be able to come in and set up clinics like they've been doing as well as folks like Self Regional coming in and setting up clinics," said Morton. "We're relying on some of those smaller providers in the county to be able to help with that as well."
Carolina Health Centers and Emmanuel Family Clinic is also providing COVID-19 vaccinations as well.
Many of the first responders, like EMS and firefighters, in the county have already received their second dose of the vaccine as well. Morton is also hoping law enforcement will be able to be vaccinated soon.
"We have had some times throughout the pandemic that have been pretty scary as far as the amount of cases that we had at one time. When you compare that to some of the other counties around us, it doesn't really look like it's that big of a deal but whenever you look at the size of our population, it's actually pretty big for us," explained Morton.
The director said the county saw high numbers of coronavirus cases back in July and December this past year. He believes overall now the cases have leveled off.
At the moment, Morton feels the supply of the vaccine is meeting the demand for the county.
"So far, we've still not had anybody say that they tried to get a vaccine and have been unable to, those that are within Phase 1a. We feel like that the vaccine is available, that there really doesn't seem to be a shortage," said the director.
There has been issues with some of the older members of the community being able to sign up for appointments to get the vaccine due to technology challenges. Morton believes DHEC is helping those specific individuals to help get them set up to receive the vaccine.
"I definitely think we're seeing some positive movement as far as combating the virus," said Morton. "The vaccine really is a big deal and with Johnson & Johnson now coming on with a vaccine, I think that's going to be a real game changer with that single dose vaccine and it's going to be able to push even more vaccine out and hopefully help us progress through the phases more rapidly and get us to a place where we're able to start getting back to some resemblance of normal."