COVID-19 vaccine site opens at Expo Center
Administrator plans three other locations in county
For Edward Bonczek, getting t he COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday brings him a step closer to being able to visit his wife, who lives in a nursing home and also is getting the vaccine.
For pediatrician David Dimitroff, 38, the vaccine is a way of protecting others as well as himself.
In all, 123 people signed up to receive their first dose of the vaccine against the coronavirus, offered for the first time Tuesday at the Porter County Expo Center by the county’s health department.
The first round of the vaccine went to people 80 years old and older, as well as health care workers and first responders, officials said. As more vaccines are made available by the Indiana State Department of Health, plans call for providing the free shots to a wider segment of the county’s population and setting up satellite vaccine clinics across the county.
Bonczek, 89, got a ride to the site from his
daughter, Helen Nunnelly, who he lives with in Union Mills. The two hope the vaccines will allow them to once again see LaDella Bonczek, who lives in a Valparaiso nursing home and survived COVID-19. She got her first round of the vaccine Monday, Nunnelly said.
“We haven’t stepped into a store since COVID started,” Nunnelly said. Nunnelly said her father has made only one other trip out in the past 10 months, since the pandemic hit, for a flu shot. “We have everything delivered.”
Bonczek said he hopes the pandemic is over soon because everyone is getting tired of it. Nunnelly said her mother used to come home for a few days a week but that stopped in March.
“She does have a window” in her room at the nursing home, Nunnelly said. “For Christmas, my family went to her window and tried to sing her a carol.”
The county will distribute 800 doses of the two-dose vaccine produced by Moderna this week and will provide another 1,000 doses next week, said Dr. Maria Stamp, the county’s health officer.
According to the ISDH vaccine dashboard, 3,971 Porter County residents had received their first dose of the vaccine through Tuesday. Another 767 people have been fully vaccinated.
Vaccines are distributed by appointment only and time slots opened Jan. 7 for this week and next. Within 24 hours, all the slots were filled, Stamp said, though more appointments will be added for next week
now that the health department knows it will be receiving more doses of the vaccine than first expected.
At the Expo Center East building, folks checked in before heading into a curtained cubicle for their shot. The next step was scheduling the follow-up dose in 28 days, and then resting for 15 minutes to make sure they didn’t have a reaction.
The vaccine offered by Pfizer, Stamp said, requires a second dose in 21 days but also necessitates special cold storage.
“Our sites will always just have Moderna because of storage constraints. They are both equally effective,” she said.
Dimitroff, who lives and has his medical practice in Valparaiso, said he was getting the vaccine to protect his family, staff and community as much as himself.
“I don’t want to be the one to give it to someone else,” he said. “On the balance, looking at the risks and benefits, the benefits seem to win, and that’s why I went forward with it,” he said.
Once the county reaches “phase three” of distributing the vaccine, which will be when it’s available to the general public, the county will establish three satellite sites across the county for getting the shots, said John Pisowicz, the health department’s emergency preparedness coordinator.
While the Expo Center will continue as the main vaccination site, satellite locations will be established in Chester ton, Portage and Kouts, though the exact locations have yet to be determined, he said, adding each site will be open for a week at a time on a rotating basis.
Chuck Schoon, of Portage, brought in his dad, Fred Schoon, 86. Fred, his son said, worked in banking until early December, moving from Mooresville to live with his family in Portage.
“For him it’s kind of a double edge thing. He never had a vaccine in his life. He’s never been sick a day in his life, but it seemed like the preventive thing to do,” Chuck Schoon said.
Chuck Schoon said it took some cajoling to get his father to go for the vaccine but he insisted his father get it.
“People are envious of you today,” he said to his father.