St. Luke’s Contacts Patients to Get Their COVID-19 Vaccine

St. Luke’s COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic is proud to be open and vaccinating primary care patients who are 75 years and older.

St. Luke’s is calling eligible patients to schedule a vaccination. Because the supply is limited, vaccines are being prioritized based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Minnesota Department of Health.

Age is a major risk factor for complications from COVID-19. While the state says patients 65+ are eligible, St. Luke’s is further focusing on patients 75+ in order to offer vaccines to those at highest risk. This is a high volume of patients, about 8,000 people, but there are a large number of appointments available each day. Patients are contacted based off a randomized list to ensure the vaccine is distributed fairly.

“Please be assured that you don’t need to call us for a vaccine appointment. We will call you as quickly as possible,” St. Luke’s Interim Co-President & CEO & Chief Medical Officer Dr. Nick Van Deelen said. “Again, this will take time to move through, but we believe we’ll be able to further increase the number of daily appointments, again, based on allocations from the state.”

St. Luke’s has 400 appointment slots per day. Once appointments are offered to all patients 75+, St. Luke’s will immediately move to calling a randomized list of patients who are 65+. This is a larger group of about 11,000 people. St. Luke’s patients who live in Wisconsin are eligible to receive a vaccine in Minnesota. They will be called and offered a vaccine appointment at St Luke’s.

Vaccines will be given at St. Luke’s COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic at St. Luke’s Hospital, 915 E. 1st Street, Duluth. This centralized distribution model will allow St. Luke’s to vaccinate as many people as possible, as efficiently as possible. This may evolve to include additional locations in the future. It is also important to note that vaccine appointments may need to be rescheduled.

People are encouraged to visit slhduluth.com/COVIDvaccine for regular updates on the COVID-19 vaccination process at St. Luke’s.