Vaccine Appointments To Open For All By May 1, Bucks Co. Expects

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — Bucks County plans to open up access to coronavirus vaccine appointments dramatically in the coming weeks, aiming to make appointments available to all residents by May 1.

In a news release, county health officials said that on Thursday, April 1, Bucks will allow everyone eligible for a COVID-19 vaccination under Phase 1A of the state's plan to make an appointment online.

Over the past week, the Bucks County Health Department has worked to clear its waiting list of residents who pre-registered on its website for a vaccine under Phase 1A. Workers emailed appointment invitations to 65,000 people in a process that wrapped up on Monday, the county said.

The county planned to send "last call" emails to the roughly 160,000 1A-eligible applicants on Tuesday. Anyone who has already been vaccinated or scheduled an appointment should disregard the notice, the county said.

Officials said that on Thursday, April 1, Bucks County will no longer maintain a waiting list for people currently eligible for the vaccine. Instead, a new link will be posted to the county's vaccination information page that will let all 1A-eligible people register directly for an appointment.

By May 1, the county "expects to open appointments to all residents, regardless of age, occupation or health conditions," the news release said.

The work is part of Bucks County's effort to comply with Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf's order that all people eligible under Phase 1A be scheduled for their first vaccination dose by March 31.

Those appointments are being booked well into late April at the county's four public vaccination clinics.

"We're on our way to beating this," Dr. David Damsker, director of the Bucks County Health Department, said in the release.

Through Saturday, 156,595 people had been at least partially vaccinated in Bucks County. That's roughly equivalent to 31 percent of the county's adult population.

Bucks County four mass vaccination clinics — three on Bucks County Community College campuses and one at Neshaminy Mall — set another weekly record, administering 13,847 doses. In all, 42,813 vaccination shots were given last week throughout Bucks County.

Meanwhile, however, new cases were on the rise.

RELATED: COVID-19 Cases Rising In PA, Even As More Are Vaccinated. Why?

There were 1,664 new cases reported in Bucks County last week by the Pennsylvania Department of Health. That's up from the 1,349 reported the previous week, which already was a 31-percent rise from the week before.

Last week's seven-day average for new cases was 256, the county's highest in seven weeks. And the percentage of positive coronavirus tests in Bucks County spiked to 9.2 percent, up from 6.7 percent two weeks ago.