15% of vaccine appointments in Clark County are no-shows

Las Vegas Valley residents booking multiple appointments at local COVID-19 vaccination clinics continue to impede efforts to distribute the life-saving serum.

More than 10,000 Las Vegas Valley residents have double-booked vaccine appointments, forcing the Southern Nevada Health District to cancel the duplicates, according to Clark County Commission Chairwoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick. Despite such efforts, no-shows continue to miss approximately 15 percent of available appointments, including many who likely got earlier vaccine doses as a result of multiple appointments.

The practice causes situations where people who also need vaccination cannot get an appointment and could lead to some of the precious vaccine going to waste, Kirkpatrick she said Wednesday at the health district’s weekly COVID-19 briefing.

“Please, please, please cancel your appointments. What we are finding is that people are making appointments at five or six different locations and not canceling them,” she said.

The health district also stressed that people who book multiple appointments should cancel the ones they cannot use.

“If someone has made a duplicate appointment, they need to cancel their appointment to allow someone else to schedule,” it said in an emailed vaccination update. “They are provided a link to do so and should check their junk or spam folder if they cannot locate it.”

People also can email covidvaccine-appointments@snhd.org or call the help line at 702-759-1900 if they need assistance in canceling an appointment.

As of Tuesday, there had been 243,897 COVID-19 vaccines administered in Clark County — 203,477 first doses and 40,420 second doses, health district officials said.

The vaccine is being distributed in phases, under guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The health district’s distribution plan mirrors that of the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health’s COVID-19 Vaccination Playbook and is based on risk and level of exposure, local health officials say.

More information on health district vaccination clinics and partner PODS (points of distribution) can be found at www.snhd.info/covid.

A previous version of this story had the wrong name for Clark County Commission Chairwoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick.

Contact Marvin Clemons at mclemons@reviewjournal.com. Follow @Marv_in_Vegas on Twitter.