Blake Bates, 79, of Selma waited about 40 minutes in his car at Memorial Stadium in Bloch Park, near Selma center, to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in his left arm while sitting in his car Monday morning. market.
“I was at the library and decided to drive by and see how crowded it was,” said Bates. “It took about 40 minutes, which wasn’t bad.”
Bates is black, like most of the others who were waiting in line. Dallas County is almost 70% black.
Maegan Austin, a spokeswoman for the Vaughn Regional Medical Center in Selma, who coordinated the mass tests, said hospital staff are not asking about race in the forms people are filling out before they get the vaccines. But so far, the racial makeup reflects Dallas and the counties around the black belt.
“It will be about 70 percent black,” said Austin.
The mass drive-through site in Selma is accepting patients from Dallas, Perry, Marengo, Lowndes and Wilcox, who are all black majority counties.
“It’s going really well, better than expected,” said Austin. “At the rate we are going, we will have our little community cared for.”
The stadium site, led by hospital staff and volunteers, and nursing students at Wallace State Community College, administered about 900 to 1,000 doses of the Modern vaccine by noon on Monday.
The site is open from 8 am to 5 pm on weekdays, until Friday. By Friday, 5,000 doses of the vaccine should be administered, Austin said. School teachers were among those vaccinated, along with those 65 and older, those with serious medical problems and essential workers, including utility workers, she said.
She said the Vaughn Regional Medical Center started administering vaccines to hospital staff and other frontline workers in December. By January, the hospital had distributed 900 doses to first responders and medical professionals, and people aged 70 and over.
When Bates left the scene after the shot, a worker shouted at him, “Congratulations!”
Bates said he was relieved to get his chance. “Just thinking about being part of an epidemic is scary,” he said.