Huntsville health officials have the ambitious goal of administering three COVID-19 vaccination shots per minute next week, as health care facilities across the state are launching large-scale vaccination clinics with expanding criteria for those eligible to receive the vaccines.
The Huntsville Hospital Clinic will be located in the Jaycee Building in John Hunt Park off Airport Road and will be available to those who have registered and meet the criteria set forth by the Alabama Department of Public Health. The shots will be fired inside the Jaycee building and not on a drive-through basis.
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Huntsville will expand its vaccination effort Monday as those eligible for shots expand to people 65 and older, along with new occupations defined by ADPH as ‘essential’, such as teachers and grocery stores.
Places in Mobile, Hoover and Auburn this week processed people for vaccinations in major clinics.
ADPH next week designated eight sites in the state to start large-scale vaccination clinics: Anniston, Birmingham, Dothan, Huntsville, Mobile, Montgomery, Selma and Tuscaloosa. This is the first attempt in Alabama to deliver more than 1,000 vaccinations each day.
David Spillers, president and CEO of Huntsville Hospital, said the hospital would receive additional doses of the Pfizer vaccine with the goal of vaccinating perhaps as many as 2,000 people a day. Those receiving their first vaccination dose will also be scheduled for their second dose, Spillers said.
“We will do between 1,500 and 2,000 people in the clinic daily,” Spillers said. “We feel comfortable that we can handle so many people.
Put it in context, if you do 2000 people a day, a day of 10 hours, it’s three people you vaccinate every minute. A lot needs to happen to get it through the system. ”
At other sites on the site, there are about 800 people getting shots due to the limited amount of vaccine. Officials said they hoped to increase capacity by 1,000 a day by the weekend.
“The biggest constraint we currently have to manage the pandemic is the availability of vaccines,” Spillers said.
Registration for the vaccine is available at the following links:
Alabama Department of Public Health
Huntsville Hospital
East Alabama Medical Center in Opelika
Vaccine Call Center in Jefferson County
USA Health in Mobile
Selma Hospital
Decatur Morgan Hospital
Southeastern Health in Dothan
Druid City Hospital in Tuscaloosa
Baptist Health in Montgomery
In the counties of Mobile and Baldwin, you can also register with Infirmary Health by calling 251-341-2819.
In Anniston, you can register with the Northeast Alabama Regional Medical Center by calling 256-235-5600.