HAMILTON COUNTY, Ind. — Monday morning, Indiana's department of health announced that Hoosiers 65 to 69 years old are immediately eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations.
Previously, only those 70 and up were eligible for the shots.
The decision puts another 357,000 people in line for the vaccine. Many of them quickly jumped online and made reservations.
All this happened as Hamilton County opened a new, much bigger vaccination clinic. On opening day, the clinic got a workout.
"Demand is enormous," said Christian Walker, the emergency preparedness director for the Hamilton County Health Department. "The state department of health opened registration for those 65 and older and it caused a lag in the computer system because so many people were trying to jump in to get registered to get vaccinated."
Joe Mansfield and his wife Terry, both in their mid-60's, quickly got online and looked for appointments close to their Indianapolis home. Everything was booked.
"We would have had to wait five weeks, five weeks just to get the first shot," Terry said. "That's unacceptable. It didn't sound fun." So they grabbed appointments at the Hamilton County clinic.
Located on the county fairgrounds in Noblesville, the new clinic is about six times bigger than the old one.
The county's allotment of vaccine has jumped from 800 to 1,200, to a promised 1,600 weekly doses before the end of the month.
"We'll take what we can. We'd love to be able to dispense more vaccine," Walker said. "It is an issue much bigger than the local level and the state level."
This clinic has a lot of space to grow. If vaccines become available, county officials can see it growing into a large scale operation and perhaps quadrupling the number of people now getting vaccinated.
In the race to get vaccines and get them into people's arms, Hamilton County doesn't want to fall behind.