BRENHAM, Texas — The first SubHUB administering the covid-19 vaccine in the Brazos Valley is underway.
Five days, 26 agencies, 2,000 vaccines. The coronavirus vaccination drive thru in Washington County is now vaccinating those in phase 1b. This includes people over the age of 65 and people over the age of 16 with a chronic medical condition. In less than a week to set up, the vaccination site plans to administer all 2000 vaccines by the end of this week.
“The biggest piece is trying to control traffic and flow, finding a geographic spot to do it so the fairgrounds makes that pretty easy. Inclement weather we had to plan for so everything where people are actually doing work is under the canopy," said Washington County EMS Director Kevin Deramus.
The three lanes at the vaccination site allow three cars to receive the vaccine at the same time. After patients receive the vaccine, they wait for 15 minutes in a lot for any side effects.
Baylor Scott & White was present with its own staff to help with the vaccine distribution.
“Baylor Scott & White wants the vaccine in as many arms as that will accept it. If you walk through our hospitals today you’ll see a lot of COVID patients. We need to do all we can, social distancing, mask, and now the vaccine to flatten that curve so we can get back to a little bit what we call normal,” said Baylor Scott & White College Station President Jason Jennings.
Although the demand for the vaccine is high, supply is simply not enough.
“We had 7,000 people call the call center in 60 seconds. So, at eight O'clock in the morning when the call center went live, we had seven thousand. We had 600,000 people call in two hours. So, that creates a backlog and a jam. We only have two thousand vaccines for this hub so the first two thousand people that were on the call list were called back and put in a queue essentially,” said Deramus.
With the first SubHUB in Washington County, Baylor Scott & White says it is here to serve the needs of all in the community.
“We’re here to serve not just urban but rural. We have a clinic presence here. We’re here with 12 clinicians to provide as many vaccinations as we can get. So it means the world to this community we can serve,” said Jennings.
The SubHUB did not have anyone with side effects today.
The hospital says it doesn’t know how much vaccine the county will receive. It is on a week to week basis and is waiting for notification for the next batch.