April. (Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)||A well-wisher shares sentiments for Clayton Shultz, a popular coach at Eastern Hancock High School who died in the spring after a battle with cancer. Supporters organized a procession in his honor. (Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)||Jackson Fisher looks out from his car window as families make their way through a queue to get meals at Mt. Vernon schools. All the county school districts organized meal distribution campaigns in the spring after schools closed. Thousands of meals would be distributed in an effort that lasted into the summer. (Tom Russo| Daily Reporter)||Ashley Houck, Family Services coordinator at Erlewein Mortuary & Crematory arranges chairs spaced apart in one of the funeral home's visitation rooms. Funeral homes were forced to curtail the size of groups for visitations and funerals as part of efforts the thwart spread of the coronavirus. (Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)||A digital sign for the Greenfield Christian Church informs parishioners to stay home during the pandemic. (Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)||Forced to close its dining room, the Kenneth Butler Memorial Soup Kitchen -- like dozens of restaurants in the county -- resorted to carry-out service for its vulnerable clients.||A shopper strolls by an empty meat counter at the Meijer store in McCordsville. The date was Friday, March 13, the day when schools were shut down and the impact of the emerging pandemic was first being felt. (Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)||Greenfield-Central head custodian Steve Sturm uses an atomizer to help disinfect the school's library. Schools adopted stringent cleaning regimens from the earliest days of the pandemic. (Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)||Greenfield-Central head coach Luke Meredith talks with his players at halftime during their game against Plainfield in February. (Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)||New Palenstine's Addie Halter competes on the floor exercise while her team watches during a meet in February. (Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)||An inmate's hand sticks out a jail door at the Hancock County Jail. (Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)||Hancock County deputies Matt Kelly, left, and Gary Achor search a house for drugs after responding to a call about an overdose. Photographer Tom Russo was accompanying the sheriff's department one night in January 2000 as part of a day-in-the-life project published in February. (Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)||The old Gem Elevator on County Road 500W, once a bustling marketplace, shows its age.||Active-shooter training by the Hancock Sheriff's Department at the Hancock County Courthouse in January 2020 was as realistic as officials could make it.(Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)||The Queen Pageant for the severely curtailed Hancock County 4-H Fair was so 2020. (Tom Russo | Daily Reporter)
HANCOCK COUNTY — Plenty of appointments are available as more people than ever are eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine.
The state announced Saturday that eligibility would lower to age 40 starting Monday, March 22.
The Indiana Department of Health said Saturday that the expanded age requirements will make 400,000 additional residents eligible to be vaccinated.
As of late Monday afternoon, the next available appointments at Hancock Regional Hospital’s COVID-19 vaccine clinic were on Thursday, April 8. At the Hancock County Health Department’s clinic, the next available slots were on Tuesday, April 6.
Both sites rely on the state’s scheduling system at ourshot.in.gov. Indiana residents can also call 211 for assistance registering for an appointment at a state-supplied vaccination site.
Links to sign up for the vaccine at private pharmacies in Hancock County like Kroger and Walmart in Greenfield and Meijer in McCordsville are available on the state’s website as well. Residents can sign up at sites in other counties too, if desired.
Indiana’s eligibility expansion to age 40 follows its lowering to 45 last week. The new age group joins a growing list that also includes health-care workers, long-term care facility residents, congregate living facility workers, first-responders, teachers and school staff and those with certain high-risk conditions, to which pregnancy was recently added. Veterans of any age who already receive care at the VA Northern Indiana Health Care System or the Roudebush VA Medical Center (Veteran Health Indiana) are eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccination as well.
Full details on vaccine eligibility are available at the state’s COVID-19 vaccine website.
As of early Monday, nearly 14,000 Hancock County residents have been fully vaccinated, and more than 21,000 had received the first dose in a two-dose series. Statewide, more than 950,000 residents have been fully vaccinated, and more than 1.4 million have received the first dose in a two-dose series.
