The Morgan County Health Department is urging area residents to not wait when it comes to school vaccinations.
Director of Nursing, with the Morgan County Health Department, Jacquie Barringer says despite the uncertainty brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, certain vaccinations are still required when students do return to school.
“We are kind of caught up in all of this information about COVID. We have a lot of information coming out of it, and we don’t know what school is even going to look like when it starts.
What we do know is by law, there are certain grades that require certain vaccinations. And so we just want to put a reminder out there to parents that those vaccinations are very important, and we need to be thinking about how we are going to get those kids vaccinated.”
Due to COVID restrictions, immunization services are only available currently by appointment.
Barringer says there will be a few questions parents will be asked when they call to make an appointment, including their child’s name, date of birth and any insurance information.
“One of the things that parents really need to do, is to make sure that their insurance company does cover the vaccines they are coming to get, and that the Morgan County Health Department is an in-network provider for their insurance company. We don’t want anyone to be saddled because vaccines can be very expensive.
We have the vaccines for Children’s Program here, we have private pay vaccines for commercial insurance, and we are also a CHIP provider as well.”
Barrenger stresses to parents of children who are going into kindergarten, 6th or 12th grade, these are key ages where health officials know children need their vaccinations updated.
She says children entering Pre-K or Head Start will also likely need vaccination services before they can attend.
For more information, or to make an appointment, call the Morgan County Health Department at 245-5111.