(Seguin) — Local officials have put together a plan that will allow a large number of COVID-19 vaccinations to be given to the public. The joint mass vaccine plan was submitted this week to the Texas Department of State Health Services. It’s a collaboration between Guadalupe Regional Medical Center (GRMC), Guadalupe County and the city of Seguin.
Guadalupe County Emergency Management Coordinator Patrick Pinder says they have already identified a site for the mass vaccination events in Seguin, and they are working on finding at least two other sites in Guadalupe County.
“Over the past few weeks, the county has been seeing the need for more COVID vaccines here in Guadalupe County. We have seen Bexar County and surrounding areas receiving these large allocations and we wanted to make sure that the citizens of Guadalupe County are also having that option,” said Pinder.
This planning has been going on for weeks, and the official plan has now been presented to the state — with hopes that the state will quickly look to provide more vaccines for people in this community.
“So what we’ve been tasked with and what we’ve been working for several weeks is finalizing a plan to present to the Department of State Health Service Texas Division of Emergency Management to show them that Guadalupe County is ready for the COVID vaccine so what we’ve done is we’ve partnered with GRMC, the city of Seguin and presented a plan showing that we will use the Seguin Coliseum and we would be able to push over 1,000 vaccines a day to that location and the plan that was submitted (Tuesday) provided the state that information,” said Pinder.
The plan calls for 1,000 vaccines to be given per day, but this is all dependent upon the state approving and then sending the allocations to Guadalupe County. Pinder says they have done as much as they can to try to get more doses of the vaccines for people in this area.
“The request was submitted to the state was a request for 5,000 doses to be run through the Coliseum location. One of the things the state will look at when we receive the allocation is how quickly we can get through them. So, the plan that we presented is showing the state that we can go through 1,000 doses a day depending on how fast we can get that injection into peoples’ arms. There is a waiting time so there’s all kinds of factors that need to be addressed and those will be outlined out the first few days whenever this site becomes available, but after we can show the state that we can push that vaccine, we would then request additional vaccines of larger quantities of 5,000, 10,000 to show the state, ‘hey, we can push this out’ and if we can get 10,000 vaccines, the site would be open for 10 days. If we get 20,000, the site would be open for 20 days. That’s the kind of presentation and a plan that we presented,” said Pinder.
There is a short turn around between the time when the state would notify them of the allotment, and when they would actually deliver it. There’s also a limited window for how long they have to distribute the vaccines once they are received. Pinder says that’s one of the reasons why this is such a fluid situation.
“That’s one of the reasons we have partnered up with GRMC because the best people to handle the vaccine is the hospital folks. So, the vaccine that we submitted for was the Moderna vaccine. It is not the vaccine that requires the ultra-cold storage and part of the plan is the hospital coming in and basically being the pharmacy rep, being the ones doing the draws of the vaccine, handling the vaccine and then the partnership that we developed with the city and the county is you would have city staff, paramedics, office staff, county staff, security, police officers that is doing the remainder of the outside job tasks but the hospital would then control the actual Moderna vaccine,” said Pinder.
Pinder says part of the challenge is that the vaccine’s high efficacy rate is only achieved after a second shot is given. That means the first shot will not do much to protect you from the virus. Pinder says you need the second booster shot to really be able prevent the spread of the virus.
“So, if you get the first dose, you have to go back to get your second dose. Right now, if you are getting your first dose at any of the locations, you are then going back to the same location and getting the second dose. The folks that were able to receive the vaccine (Thursday) and Friday in Schertz, they are going to have to go back to Schertz and get that vaccine so it’s the same thing when we set up this site here in Seguin. You’ll be able to get that dose out of the Coliseum whenever we get it and 28 days later, you’ll come to the same location and get your second dose,” said Pinder.
Even if the requested doses are given, it’s going to take months to get everyone vaccinated. Pinder says we are still very early on in the process, and the only people who can be vaccinated at this time are those who are healthcare workers, those who are over the age of 65, or those who are over the age of 16 and who have a chronic underlying medical condition.
Pinder says the county, the city and the hospital are all committed to helping to ensure that the COVID-19 vaccine is delivered to our community as soon as possible, but he says people are going to need to be patient until more doses start to arrive. He says this initial plan only focuses on the Seguin location at the Coliseum, but he says they are working on more sites across the county.
“We have been working with the city of Schertz, the city of Cibolo, the city of New Braunfels all those different surrounding cities and even including Comal County Public Health to try to establish other locations that would suite all people in the community for vaccine sites. We have not confirmed on other locations that is why we have not announced other locations. We have some locations in the works in the Cibolo area, the northern part of the county and the city of New Braunfels area. The locations that we are looking at have to be large locations,” said Pinder.
The logistics of setting up these mass vaccination sites starts with finding the right location that will provide adequate staging and that would allow them to provide 1,000 shots per day. He says these locations have to be large and easily accessible.
“We have to look at locations with large parking spaces to put thousands of people through there in a day. We have to have places, buildings, at least eight thousand square feet so we can have people spaced out because the waiting period after you get the vaccine is 15 minutes if you have a reaction or 30 minutes if you have a reaction or 15 minutes if you don’t have a reaction so you have to be able to wait and watch people and that’s why we are looking at large areas,” said Pinder.
Big sites, like the Coliseum, are definitely a huge part of the local vaccine distribution strategy, but Pinder says they have also built in some smaller sites that will help them get more shots into the arms of local people.
“We are also looking at smaller communities. We are looking at the VFW halls. We are looking at the KC halls. We are looking at churches. We want to be able to take this vaccine when it becomes available to the smaller communities. We want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to get the vaccine wherever they are at. Some of the ideas that we have had is maybe go out to the smaller communities and give the vaccine to the folks and then have them come to the larger sites to get their second dose. All those things are still being worked out but right now, the plan that was submitted is for the Coliseum in Seguin and in collaboration with the hospital,” said Pinder.
The city of Schertz Friday will be hosting its last vaccine distribution event for the week. Schertz only had 975 doses to give, and it required that people sign up online to make an appointment. All of those doses were claimed in just a couple of minutes, and people who didn’t have access to a computer were all but shut out of the process. Pinder says the plan that they have submitted to the state won’t allow that to happen going forward. He says they will make it easier for everyone to get signed up.
“In the plan, we are going to be offering both online and phone registration. So, one of the things that we are seeing is people don’t have access to the internet. People aren’t fast enough on the computer to get the links, so we want to make sure that we are providing that alternate source to make an appointment. So, one of the things currently, we are in the process of setting up a phone bank system when we do get notification, allocation for vaccines, we are going to put out a call number for people to call and register and get the vaccines. Part of the plan also is holding back so many vaccines for people to make phone appointments because we understand that not everybody has access to the internet, not everybody is computer savvy and some of that older community, we want to make sure that we provide them a phone number because some people want to talk to somebody and that’s what we are going to offer in this plan,” said Pinder.
In addition to the local plans for vaccination events, the state is also working on creating large scale vaccine hubs in 28 metropolitan areas. It also has plans to create hubs in 206 smaller communities around the state. All those details are still being worked out by state officials. Pinder says they will be providing regular updates on the vaccine distribution, and they will continue to share that information with the public.
Meanwhile, local officials are sharing a resource from John Hopkins Hospital. The famous Baltimore based medical facility has been tracking COVID-19 totals and providing resources to help the public understand the battle against the virus. This latest resource is called what you need to know. It provides all the details about the vaccines, how they work, how they need to be distributed and it looks at how long it will take to get enough people vaccinated to really begin to defeat COVID-19. The link to the website is https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccine-what-you-need-to-know.
Pinder says until they get everyone vaccinated, it’s important people continue to wear a mask, practice social distancing and wash their hands frequently.