Mass vaccination site in Berkeley vaccinates 323 people in ‘soft launch’

After several weeks of calling doctors, waiting incessantly and investigating the deployment of the COVID-19 vaccine in California, hundreds of senior Berkeleyans woke up on Thursday morning to unexpected news – the Berkeley mass vaccination site was open one day ahead of time and locals 75 and older can book an appointment the same day.

The city’s first clinic of its kind began on Feb. 5 in the northern parking lot of Golden Gate Fields, located in Albany. This is the vaccination site in Alameda County, working in partnership with Curative, Albany, Berkeley and the racetrack, and will be permanently located in the Buchanan Road parking lot overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay.

The website is not going anywhere, but the city says that appointments currently only need to be scheduled until February 8 due to the limited vaccine supply. According to Curative’s Shoshana Gould, partnership manager for the Bay, on February 5, 323 people were able to get their first dose of Modner vaccine.

Alta Bates Hospital was the first place to receive vaccines in Berkeley at the end of December. Following a series of changes to the vaccination structure across the country, the city began vaccinating residents aged 75 and older at its small vaccination clinics last week. At the same time, some healthcare providers have started offering vaccines to people aged 65 and older. Both of these age groups are in Phase 1B, but Berkeley prioritizes the oldest residents first. Another mass vaccination site scheduled to open at the Oakland Coliseum on Feb. 16 aims to vaccinate 6,000 people a day.

The Berkeley Mass Vaccination Site, which is the first in Curative in Northern California, will significantly increase local vaccination against seniors. This is for very welcome news during a vaccine distribution across the country affected by delays and inequality, but many residents who came to the site on Monday said the process of improving city awareness is necessary to to serve residents.

The appointment process needs to be improved, say residents

Dozens of residents who spoke to Berkeleyside on Thursday said they had heard about the availability of appointments by friends, phone calls from their children, neighborhood groups and other channels. The city announced the clinic Wednesday and posted an appointment link for Berkeley residents, which was quickly filled.

The clinic was originally scheduled to start doing business on Friday, but city spokesman Matthai Chakko said a number of appointments had been made available to test Thursday’s capacity and 2,800 appointments had been offered so far. According to Chakko, the city emailed everyone in the appropriate group who signed up for city notices about the extra appointments.

This system did not work for 80-year-old Paul Shalmy, who made sure he signed up for the notification but did not have WiFi in his home. He was up late Wednesday night trying to make an appointment for the coming days, but found that all the slots had been booked. That morning, a friend called him to say that appointments had been opened.

He hurried to a place where he could access the internet, and was able to make an appointment that afternoon.

Chakko said the city has made a number of calls this week to plan vaccine vaccinations, and that it is currently expanding its system to make sure everyone who qualifies is contacted about their dose. . In public forums, every health and city official has stressed that the supply of vaccines is limited and that the city is still maximizing its orders.

Berkeley still recommends residents contact their primary care providers, but the offer has expanded to Another 800 appointments this week. This is partly due to the fact that hospitals also report limited stock, and reject eligible members who are awaiting vaccination. As of Friday, Berkeley Public Health has administered 3,006 doses of its 4,800 doses.

“It’s really an anticlimax, I’ve waited, waited, waited,” Steve Halverson said. He has been a member of Kaiser for decades, but could not make an appointment for the vaccine through his doctor. He also received a call from a friend on Thursday morning about the new Curative website and there comes his wife, Win, who is not yet old enough to be eligible for the vaccine.

They waited almost an hour in the queue before it was their turn, but the process was smooth and simple once they moved forward. Halverson rolls up his sleeve and receives his shot within seconds while Win photographs the important but too late event.

The city is testing the capacity for the vaccination site and will try to expand access

Curative is manning the entire test site and 15 nurses were employed on 5 February. They made sure to eliminate and take breaks while working directly under the sun, and were shot shot after shot at a variety of cheering, short and matter-of-fact things. fact residents.

Residents who were driving entered through the front gate of the large parking lot and passed an initial check to make sure they had an appointment, and then went to the next area for a closer ID and stay investigation to make sure that they prefer vaccine. (Shots are only given to Alameda County residents.) After receiving their shot, they moved to a monitoring area of ​​15 to 30 minutes to make sure they had no side effects.

Fire Capt. Berkeley Fire Department Colin Arnold said because the shot is intramuscular, instead of intravenous, there is less chance of irritations and severe reactions. People with high risk factors are being watched for longer, but Arnold said the vaccine has an incredibly low anaphylaxis (or allergic reaction).

The fastest driving vaccinations on Thursday lasted about five minutes, although some were slightly longer. Some residents who asked to receive the shot in another arm (away from the car door) had to get out of the car to sit in a chair, and others took longer to answer questions from the nurses.

None of the residents who spoke to Berkeleyside said they were nervous about getting the shot, and there was an equal distribution of people who drove to the site themselves or had others drive.

Transport activist Darrell Owens pointed out social media that Golden Gate Fields is extremely difficult to access for anyone who does not have a car or cannot pay for the shuttle.

The city has partnered with Easy Does It Transportation Service to pay rides to seniors at $ 15. (Please note: Please do not call or email Easy Does It for vaccine appointments.) More information on health examinations and transportation service requirements is available on their website.

Berkeley is also expanding its offering to senior centers and other places that may be more accessible to city residents, including the North Berkeley Senior Center and local partners such as LifeLong Medical Care.

After long, difficult months of the pandemic, the mass vaccination site in Berkeley is a sign of progress

In addition to the frustration, impatience and hardship of waiting for the vaccine during the most difficult months of the pandemic, there was also a protected sense of joy among the residents who received their vaccinations on Thursday.

There is an interval of 28 days between the first and second Moderna vaccine shot, and patients receiving the first dose should maintain all COVID-19 precautions during this period as well as after receiving their second shot. There is no guarantee that someone who has been vaccinated will not be able to transmit the virus to another person.

But it was still a great opportunity for many to start fantasizing about the activities and journeys they might experience again in the years to come. Many said they wanted to see their grandchildren again, and some, like the Halversons, began planning a long trip to Hungary.

Alicia Carter added her friend and her little puppy Daisy Mae and said she would start small and go to the Albany orb after she was vaccinated.

One of the most enthusiastic reactions was from Daniel Musicant, who was a DJ for KALX radio and figured out how to make his appointment after reading Berkeleyside. He said he was ‘shocked’ to receive his shot, and threw up a cheerful thumb after the vaccination.

He reported for his shot an hour before the appointment, and after seeing the whole pandemic unfold in the early days in Wuhan, China, he said he could not believe it was finally his turn to get the vaccine do not receive.

“I did not expect any of these things,” says Musicant, who moved to Cal in the 1960s and has lived in Berkeley since 1973. “I’m very excited, I’ve been following this thing since day one.”