COVID-19 vaccinations are coming, and residents of Albany and Clinton County won’t have to travel far at all in order to have a chance of receiving the much sought after shots.

Last week, during one of his daily public information briefings, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear announced that Albany would be the home of one of the state’s regional vaccination centers.

That news was confirmed later that same day when The Medical Center at Albany issued a press release to the Clinton County News, noting that the local hospital had been designated a Regional Vaccination Location by Governor Beshear to provide COVID-19 vaccines.

At the time of last week’s announcement, the Albany location would become one of 291 vaccination locations throughout Kentucky.

The vaccinations will be given, beginning this week, for persons eligible in Phases 1a and 1b and those vaccinations will be performed at The Welcome Center of Clinton County, located at 28 Welcome Center Drive in Albany, just north of the Albany City limits and just off of U.S. 127.

Those persons eligible as part of Phases 1a and 1b are asked to schedule a vaccine appointment by texting SHOT to 606-387-3646 or by emailing AlbanyVaccine@mchealth.net.

Med Center Health will bill insurance companies for administration costs and individuals will not incur any costs.

The vaccine will be provided regardless of whether or not a person has insurance.

As defined by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Kentucky Governor’s Office, Phase 1a includes long term care facilities, assisted living facilities and healthcare personnel. Phase 1b includes anyone 70 or older, first responders, K-12 school personnel and childcare workers.

People requesting the vaccine must be Kentucky residents. A Kentucky driver’s license or form of identification to prove residency and age will be required. We ask that those who have already had COVID-19 wait 90 days after recovering before getting the vaccine.

Appointments cannot be made by calling The Welcome Center of Clinton County or The Medical Center at Albany. At this time, scheduling will be done through email and text messaging.

Vaccines will be given by appointment. Those with an appointment are asked to not arrive more than 10 minutes prior to their scheduled appointment.

Since the pandemic first began in Kentucky, Clinton County has been one of the hardest hit counties in Kentucky, and just last week moved out of the highest level of COVID-19 spread rate, the Critical Spread level, or red zone, after 135 consecutive days at that level.