Lots of interest, not enough shots as vaccine hubs open
By 10 a.m. Monday, two lines had formed outside the Elvira Cisneros Senior Community Center on the South Side: one for residents who had managed to make an appointment by phone for a dose of the Moderna vaccine and another for those who hadn’t.
The line for those without appointments was longer — and louder.
“Let somebody in there know that we’re on standby,” urged an elderly Hispanic woman who said she’d called 88 times in an unsuccessful attempt to register for a shot.
“We know, we know,” said Kyle Baker, a volunteer for Wellmed, the health care network administering the COVID-19 vaccine. “We have a certain amount of doses from the state, and they were all allocated to the appointments today.”
The Cisneros center was one of three new San Antonio vaccination hubs that opened Monday — one each on the South Side, on the West Side and at the Alamodome. They are meant to speed the pace of inoculations by making free injections available on a large scale. But by noon Monday, all available appointments had been claimed.
The problem wasn’t a lack of medical personnel or public interest.
It was too little vaccine. Baker said Wellmed had only 9,000 doses to administer this week: 1,000 a day, Monday through Saturday, at the Cisneros center and 500 a day at the designated West Side site, the Alicia Treviño Lopez Senior Center.
A scarce supply across the country has split the landscape into two populations: those fortunate enough to get shots in their arms and everyone else forced to wait as the pan
demic worsens. For the latter group, jammed phone lines and overbooked online appointment portals have led to widespread frustration.
Since mid-december, the state has received nearly 2 million doses through Operation Warp Speed, the federal government’s public-private partnership to develop and distribute the vaccines.
Texas providers have administered nearly 800,000 doses, including about 56,500 in Bexar County, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
The state is giving priority to health care workers, residents of long-term care facilities, people 65 and older and those with medical conditions that increase their risk of hospitalization or death if they contract the coronavirus.
In Bexar County, that accounts for more than 60 percent of the population.
In an effort to speed the process and save lives, Texas has designated 28 sites across the state as vaccination hubs.
Monday was the first day of vaccinations at the South and West Side hubs, as well as at the Alamodome, where the city’s Metropolitan Health District began inoculating about 1,400 residents a day.
University Health began vaccinating residents last week at a hub at the Wonderland of the Americas mall on the Northwest Side.
The sites on the South and West Sides are meant for those without internet access or with limited access to transportation. Appointments are available by phone only. For the two other hubs, people can schedule appointments on the internet or by phone — when slots become available again.
Arranging even a limited supply of vaccine for the four locations took careful coordination among providers.
After receiving an allotment from the state, University Health transferred 9,000 doses of the Pfizer-biontech vaccine to Metro Health. Metro Health, in turn, transferred 9,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine to Wellmed for use on the South and West sides.
All three providers expect to administer about 30,000 doses this week — and they’re pushing the state to ramp up allocations in the coming weeks.
“We’re putting in our request for as many as possible,” said Assistant City Manager Colleen Bridger, who oversees Metro Health. “We will be asking for at least 30,000, split between the three major providers.”
Bridger added, “We are positioning ourselves to really be able to advocate for more than 30,000. We have plans for expansion when more vaccine becomes available. And just like people saw us do with the testing sites — we started with one big testing site, then we grew to three big testing sites, then we started opening micro-testing sites — that’s the plan for vaccination rollout as well.”
For each person at the Alamodome, the process — from entering the parking lot to exiting — took about 45 minutes. After getting a shot, residents must wait 15 to 20 minutes to ensure they don’t suffer an adverse reaction.
A scrum of officials, including Mayor Ron Nirenberg and County Judge Nelson Wolff, toured the grounds. The mayor and county judge emphasized a need for predictability in supply so providers could schedule appointments weeks out, with reasonable confidence that vaccine doses would be available.
“If we knew how many were coming next week and the week after that, we can go ahead and open up appointments,” Nirenberg said. Wolff agreed: “You’re going week to week, and that jams up your systems.”
At the Cisneros senior center, Sonia Garza, vice president of network operations at Wellmed, had to turn away those who had shown up without appointments.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Garza said. “We need to reinforce that they have to have appointments. The number, it works. If they call it and it’s a busy signal, or the call drops, that just means that it’s overwhelmed.”
Inside the spacious center at 517 S.W. Military Drive, vaccinations ran smoothly for those who showed up with appointments.
“We have an efficient way to get people in and out,” said Dr. Carlos Hernandez, Wellmed’s president. “Our goal is to get people in and out of here in 25 minutes, including the observation period.”
Wellmed would not waste a single dose, Hernandez said. At the end of each day, extra doses would go to anyone, he said, regardless of whether they had an appointment.
Scheduling appointments
Call 833-968-1745 to make an appointment at the South or West Side hubs. For availability of vaccines at the Alamodome, go to covid19.sanantonio.gov/vaccine. For the Wonderland of the Americas site, visit wecandoitsa.com.