Most of the people running mass sites are learning on the fly. Finding enough vaccinators, already challenging for some sites, could become a broader problem as they multiply. Local health care providers or faith-based groups rooted in communities will likely be far more effective at reaching people who are wary of the shots. And many of the huge sites don’t work for people who lack cars or easy access to public transportation.
“Highly motivated people that have a vehicle — it works great for them,” said Dr. Rodney Hornbake, who serves as both a vaccinator and the East Hartford site’s medic, on call for adverse reactions. “You can’t get here on a city bus.”
Before dawn on a recent raw morning, Susan Bissonnette, the nurse in charge, prepared enough vials of the Pfizer vaccine and diluent for the first few hundred shots of the day. At 7:45 a.m., her team surrounded her in a semicircle, stamping the snow off their boots and warming their fingers for the hours of injections that lay ahead.
“We’re going to start with 40 vials, eight per trailer,” Ms. Bissonnette shouted to the group of 19 nurses, a doctor and an underemployed dentist who had volunteered to help. “OK, so remember it’s Pfizer, right? Point three milliliters, right?”
The site vaccinates about 1,700 people on a good day, partly because Connecticut is small and gets fewer doses than many other states. It is a well-oiled machine, with a few dozen National Guard troops directing cars into 10 lanes, checking in people, who have to make appointments in advance, and making sure they have filled out a medical questionnaire before moving down the runway to their shots.
Troops also supervise the area at the end of the runway where people wait after their shots for 15 minutes — or 30, if they have a history of allergies — in case of serious reactions.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/28/health/covid-vaccine-sites.html
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