Massive vaccination sites in eight Alabama cities combined gave more than 76,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines this week as the state strived to speed up delivery.
But some of those sites may not open at all next week, or may operate at a lower capacity than this week.
Dr. Scott Harris, the Alabama state health officer, said Friday that the state is not being assigned enough doses each week to provide those drive-thru clinics at the same rates, and that some sites may choose to use the drive-thru clinics. next week.
“Clearly this is a successful model, we would like to keep doing it,” Harris said in a media call on Friday. “But we don’t have the ability to keep doing this week after week at the moment.”
Many of the drive-thru sites are designed to be part of a weekly peak and will not be open every week. Some, such as the three sites in the Birmingham area operated by UAB, will remain open using the vaccine stock allocated by UAB Hospital.
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Harris said the state gets between 60,000 and 70,000 first-dose shots per week, about 30,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 40,000 of the Moderna vaccine. The drive-thru clinics delivered more first-time doses this week than the state receives each week on average.
Harris said the state essentially used the full supply of Pfizer vaccine it received last week to supply the drive-thru clinics.
Each location is operated by a nearby hospital, which provides the staff and equipment necessary to run the clinic and receives shipments of vaccines from federal suppliers.
The Montgomery location is designed as a week-long peak location and has not announced any plans to reopen after this week.
The Selma clinic ended operations on Wednesday afternoon after all doses were distributed in just three days.
Maegan Austin, spokeswoman for the Vaughan Regional Medical Center in Selma, said the Selma site will host one clinic of ADPH weekly on Thursday, but will not reopen as a mass vaccination until the hospital gets another large supply of vaccine. .
Harris said it is up to each individual clinic to keep their drive-thru surgery open going forward.
“Any provider that receives [vaccine] product is certainly free to hand it out as they please, ”he said. You know, some health care providers may prefer a drive-up, walk-in, or large-scale clinic. Some may want to do it by making an appointment one at a time. “
He said these surgeries can be a labor-intensive process and may not make sense if the clinics offer a lower number of appointments.
“Normally, you transport everything, every device and all your staff and all your belongings that you need from a location where you are already vaccinating to a place where you are not vaccinating,” said Harris. And so they’re just a bit labor-intensive to do. And I think unless you have to give a lot of vaccine very, very quickly, very quickly, people generally aren’t going to do it in a mass clinic. “
The distribution of shots administered at each mass clinic from Friday morning is as follows:
- Birmingham (3 locations) – 12,139 doses
- Huntsville – 12,000 doses
- Mobile (4 sites) – 22,325 doses
- Anniston – 5,000 doses
- Dothan – 6,100 doses
- Montgomery – 8,000 doses
- Selma – 5,000 doses
- Tuscaloosa – 5,889 doses
- Total – 76,453 doses
Some clinics will continue to administer doses on Friday and Saturday, and Harris said the totals could increase as there could be more than usual delays in entering data from the remote sites.
Spokespersons for the Birmingham, Huntsville, Dothan locations said those locations would remain open next week, although some would do so at reduced capacity. The U.S. Health Clinic in Mobile says it will continue to make arrangements to receive the vaccine through its online registry. AL.com is in the process of determining which of the other sites will remain open next week.
* Updated at 3:00 PM with new total numbers of the vaccine sites