Here’s when a COVID booster will be available for certain groups at Conway Medical Center
People in certain groups will be able to get a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at Conway Medical Center starting next week, hospital officials told The Sun News.
The third dose is recommended at least six months after the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced this week. For now, the groups who should get a booster are people 65 and older, people ages 50-64 with underlying health conditions, certain people under the age of 50 with underlying health conditions based on individual risk and people who are at increased risk of exposure due to their occupation or institutional setting, the agencies said.
The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) released a statement Friday in support of the booster doses for these groups, adding that the FDA and CDC are in the process of evaluating a similar recommendation for the Moderna brand of the COVID-19 vaccine.
“This is an important step in our continued efforts to keep our families and friends safe by decreasing the number of severe COVID-19 cases,” said Dr. Brannon Traxler, DHEC Public Health Director. “We’re fortunate to be able to offer booster doses for the folks in those populations who received the Pfizer vaccine in their primary vaccine series, and we encourage them to get the booster dose as soon as they reach six months after their second dose of Pfizer.”
Horry County has reached around 58% of its eligible population vaccinated against COVID-19, according to DHEC, but cases and hospitalizations have been increasing in recent weeks as the delta variant targets a younger unvaccinated population in the county.
Conway Medical Center is the second Myrtle Beach area hospital to announce the availability of a third Pfizer dose, which will begin Monday. Tidelands Health began administering the booster shots Friday.
Starting Monday, walk-in appointments for those eligible are available Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Health Plaza South, located at 6010 Highway 707 in Socastee, spokesperson Allyson Floyd told The Sun News.
This story was originally published September 24, 2021 at 1:00 PM.
