SOUTH WHITEHALL TWP., Pa. – Cars drove into the Dorney Park parking lot Wednesday to go to a mass vaccination clinic.
It involved two weeks of planning for the Lehigh Valley health network to launch the operation.
“We are very excited about this, we are glad that our community of 75 years or more is willing to participate in such efforts,” said Dr. Alex Benjamin of LVHN.
LVHN is no stranger to running mass vaccination sites, as it has a flu clinic every year, but doctors say a vaccination site against COVID has a few more hurdles.
Dr. Timothy Friel, an LVHN infectious disease specialist, said the biggest challenge has been not knowing when they will receive doses or how much they will receive.
“It makes planning for mass vaccination campaigns like this very, very difficult,” he told Ali Reid of WFMZ.
In addition, there needs to be a special car park for people to wait the required 15 minutes after getting the vaccine.
All drive-thru clinic appointments were filled quickly and LVHN plans to vaccinate about 1,000 people, over the age of 75.
All registrants also received a follow-up appointment to get their second dose of the Modern vaccine in a few weeks.
“This is really the only type of promised vaccine we know right now, depending on the state. Second doses will be supported,” Benjamin said.
LVHN said it has the capacity to vaccinate at least 5,000 a day, when an adequate supply is available.
The Sant Lluc health network also has mass vaccination sites in its 11 hospitals. A spokesman says he can vaccinate up to 5,000 people a day, but supply has also been limited for them, so right now about 3,000 doses are administered daily.
“It has been frustrating and disappointing because we have all relied on the federal government during this process to make sure we have the vaccines,” Gov. Tom Wolf told a news conference Tuesday.
About 4 million people in Pennsylvania are eligible to receive the vaccine now, in group 1A, which means 8 million doses would have to be deployed in the first phase.
Right now, the state is far behind.
“We’ve received about 1.5 million vaccines, and since it’s a two-shot cycle, that means we have enough basically for 750,000 Pennsylvanians,” Wolf said.