County Executive Marc Elrich Announces Plan to Vaccinate Residents and MCPS Employees with the Help of Johns Hopkins Medicine

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, January 27, 2021

County Executive Marc Elrich today announced that Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM) will begin vaccinating eligible County residents and Montgomery County Public School (MCPS) employees this week. This initiative is part of an effort to help prepare for the reopening of public schools. The state of Maryland has provided JHM with 8,775 doses of the vaccine which will be used to vaccinate Montgomery County residents who are older than 65 who and have received care from JHM providers within the last two years as well as MCPS employees. MCPS employees eligible for vaccination will be identified by the school system and referred to JHM for appointment scheduling.  People who meet these criteria will be contacted via email by JHM when a vaccine appointment is available. 

“We are excited about this partnership because working together, we can have a more effective vaccination strategy.” said County Executive Elrich. “With the vaccine in such limited supply, we need to work together to reach as many of the eligible populations as quickly as possible.”

“Over the last year we have partnered with local, state and national agencies to develop collaborative pandemic response plans,” says Kevin W. Sowers, M.S.N., R.N., F.A.A.N., president of the Johns Hopkins Health System and executive vice president of Johns Hopkins Medicine. “As we enter this newest vaccination phase in Maryland, we are pleased to answer the call from the state to vaccinate eligible individuals using vaccine doses allocated to residents of Montgomery County.”

“MCPS is grateful for this collaboration with the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services and Johns Hopkins Medicine that will provide all MCPS employees with access to the COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine offers a significant level of prevention against acquiring COVID-19 and increases the level of safety for staff and students,” said Superintendent Jack Smith. “Providing access to the vaccine to our employees is a crucial step toward a return to a level of normalcy for all of us and a return to in-person instruction.”

The County continues to work closely with the State regarding the limited vaccine supply and the great demand. The County is also working with other health care providers, including local hospital and health care systems, to expand the number of vaccinations available. The long-term goal, dependent on vaccine production and distribution is for the public to have the opportunity to receive the vaccination sometime in the coming months. Some private providers are offering the COVID-19 vaccine as well. Those hospitals and pharmacies are independent of the County-run vaccine facilities.

Visit the County’s COVID19 vaccine page for a more detailed description of priority groups. Preregistration for the early priority groups is also available on the vaccine website.

For the latest COVID-19 updates, visit the County’s COVID-19 website and follow Montgomery County on Facebook @MontgomeryCountyInfo and Twitter @MontgomeryCoMD. Residents can also sign up to receive text or email updates about COVID-19 vaccinations. 

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Media Contact:  

Release ID: 21-056
Media Contact: Barry Hudson 240-300-7348
Categories: COVID-19, Health