County to open drive-thru vaccination clinic in Watsonville
WATSONVILLE >> Santa Cruz County announced a drive-thru vaccination clinic at the fairgrounds in Watsonville Sunday to roll out vaccines to the county’s most affected population.
The drive-thru vaccination clinic was erected to vaccinate those who are 75 and older, or a healthcare worker. In order to sign up for a vaccine through the county’s drive-thru clinic, the person must meet the age and have an address with a Watsonville zip code of 95019, 95076 or 95077.
“This is part of an effort to make sure we get the vaccine to the hardest hit part of our community,” said County Supervisor Ryan Coonerty. “Certainly, it’s been disproportionate since the beginning of the pandemic.”
The Watsonville community has been hit with 53% of the known cases in the county while only making up 19% of the county’s population, according the county’s COVID-19 dashboard.
The drive-thru facility is scheduled to be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday. It will also be open from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday. However, that does not mean the clinic will be taken down for good. Coonerty hopes the county will be able to keep the clinic up until everyone is vaccinated.
“Our hope it to maintain the drive-thrus,” he said. “It’s just a matter of us having enough vaccine supply.”
The clinic at the County Fairgrounds isn’t the first drive-thru vaccination clinic to pop up in the county. Sutter Health hosted a drivethru clinic in a parking lot that was once a drive-in movie theater on Chanticleer Avenue, but that was only available to Sutter Health patients. This is the first clinic in the county available to anyone who meets age and occupation requirements regardless of medical coverage.
Coonerty hinted that further clinics around the county could be in the cards.
“If we have enough vaccine, we’d like to have that and other drive-thru clinics,” he said.
Those interested are urged to register as soon as possible as vaccine supplies are limited. Coonerty is not sure how many vaccines the county plans to administer during the week.
“It will depend on how many vaccines we have that are delivered this week,” Coonerty said of the number of people that would be able to be vaccinated. “I’m not sure we know yet. We always request a lot of vaccine and then get a delivery of less than that. I think it’s going to help the whole process go faster if people register in advance and show up.”
Residents eligible to get their COVID-19 vaccine can register at mhealthcheckin.com/covidvaccine.
Coonerty also stated immigrants should focus on getting vaccinated to help curb the spread of the virus.
“If people are undocumented, we aren’t sharing this information with the federal government or anyone else,” he said. “People should worry about accessing the vaccine if they’re eligible, regardless of the immigration status.”