Effective immediately, all higher education workers and student employees can register for a vaccination appointment, San Luis Obispo County COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force announced Wednesday.
First-dose vaccine appointments will begin as early as March 15 at one of the county’s three vaccine clinics at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles Event Center or South County Regional Center in Arroyo Grande.
A few local pharmacies are making a limited number of appointments available to all education workers. The pharmacies offering vaccinations are Vons/Albertsons, Ralphs, Cayucos Pharmacy, CVS and Rite-Aid.
All Cal Poly employees who do not currently live in San Luis Obispo County can still make an appointment at a county vaccination site. Employees living outside of San Luis Obispo County can also be vaccinated in the county where they reside depending on its own local vaccination plans.
These appointments follow the same guidelines as before. Employees only need to sign up online once and will be contacted when an appointment becomes available. Those who are not selected that week will also be notified.
University employees are required to bring a recent pay stub and a photo ID to their appointment to prove eligibility.
The County’s decision to expand vaccine eligibility comes on the heels of President Armstrong’s announcement last week that Cal Poly plans to resume in-person classes in the fall.
“Over the past several days, the university has helped more than 1,000 employees with high degrees of contact in their roles to access appointments at the county’s vaccine sites, allocated directly to higher education workers,” Human Resources Interim Executive Director Albert Liddicoat and Student Affairs Health and Wellbeing Assistant Vice President Tina Hadaway-Mellis wrote in an email to University employees.
Although encouraged, Cal Poly employees are not required to get vaccinated at this time, according to the email. Currently, Cal Poly is working on becoming a COVID-19 vaccine distribution site.
“The changes announced today mark another exciting step in ensuring broad, equitable access to the vaccines and returning to a more normal campus atmosphere later this year,” Liddicoat and Hadaway-Mellis wrote.