August 4, 2022
Hello NAP families,
NAP continues to hold COVID vaccine clinics every Friday in our Amherst office. We are proud to say that since the start of COVID, NAP has given over 5,600 doses of the COVID vaccine to our patients! Over the past few months we have extended our clinic hours and doubled our capacity through increased staffing. In the past two weeks, we are seeing a surge in demand for COVID vaccine boosters in patients ages 5 and up as the start of school approaches. Even with the additional capacity we created, we are still essentially full for all Friday COVID clinics through September 30th and do not have any Friday clinics in October open yet.
This demand surge is impacting our ability to schedule the COVID vaccine appointments for our 6 month to 4 year old patients who are now finally eligible to get their primary, 3 dose series of the vaccine. This age group has extremely limited options on where they can obtain the vaccine because many pharmacies and other vaccine facilities will not administer the vaccine to children under 4 years old.
NAP must prioritize it’s littlest patients getting their first doses of the COVID vaccine, so we will no longer be able to schedule booster doses in our office for patients ages 5 years and up for the next few months.
We continue to partner with the City of Northampton’s health department in our vaccination efforts. The City clinics have availability for all ages and their website offers a central scheduling platform that is linked to other local clinics in neighboring towns. To schedule your child’s booster dose, go to Northampton Health Department COVID Clinic.
We will continue to keep families posted as we continue to focus on adding more capacity for COVID vaccine through the end of the calendar year.
Stay well and enjoy the rest of your summer!