UCHealth is planning to hold a mass vaccination drive-thru event in Coors Field car parks in late January, which would see a projection of 10,000 people aged 70 and over vaccinated against COVID-19 in two days, officials said. health on Friday.
Before ending the January 30-31 event in Denver – to be held in conjunction with city and state officials and the Colorado Rockies – UCHealth will run a simulation at the same location on Sunday, with plans to vaccinate 1,000 older Colorado citizens who have commitments.
“No walk-ins will be vaccinated these days,” said Dan Weaver, vice president of communications at UCHealth. “In fact, if a car stops with several people inside, we can only vaccinate one person by appointment.”
Coloradans looking for UCHealth COVID-19 vaccines can sign up for consultations through the provider’s website or by calling 720-462-2255; those who fall under the state’s current vaccination status – such as people aged 70 and over – will be notified when there is an appointment, either at the drive-thru location or elsewhere.
Sunday’s pilot event will start slowly, with a small number of cars brought in from Coors Field parking lots between 8 and 9 am, before teams take a break to “find out what works, what needs to be adjusted,” said Weaver . Then, at 10am, a larger number of cars – all by appointment – will be released, with a forecast of 1,000 people aged 70 and over being vaccinated by noon.
After people are vaccinated, there is a mandatory 15-minute observation period to watch for any negative reactions to the injections, so vehicles will be directed to another parking lot, Weaver said. There, observers and EMS teams will be walking around monitoring those who have just received their shots.
“We are certainly optimistic that if this weekend’s driver goes well, we will be able to maintain the two-day drive-thru vaccination clinic next weekend,” said Weaver.
Employees from other health care providers will also be available to observe, with the notion that the two-day UCHealth event can be used as a model to prepare other drive-thru vaccination clinics across the state, said Weaver. The state will provide UCHealth with additional doses of COVID-19 vaccines so that the healthcare system can inoculate up to 10,000 people over the next weekend, he noted.
UCHealth’s plans come at a time when the Biden government – seeking to accelerate the delivery of the vaccine – has released a plan that would have the Federal Emergency Management Agency administer 100 mass vaccination clinics across the country, the Washington Post reported. on Friday.
Governor Jared Polis previously avoided the kind of large-scale vaccination clinics that were run in other states, saying he believed smaller sites were just as efficient. However, on Friday, he said he “did not rule out sites of any size”.
“Each website has a role,” said Polis during a press conference. “Be it a Coors Field site managed by UCHealth, be it a FEMA site. We are happy to work with all partners on these types of sites. “
But, he said, one problem with mass vaccination sites is that there is still a very limited supply of COVID-19 vaccines.
“If you have a limited amount of vaccine, I think it is very important to distribute it to the community across our state, and not in one place,” said Polis. “That said, in population centers, if you have critical mass, you can certainly have a medium-scale website or even a large-scale website as part of that general model.”