Karen Gleason
More than 2,000 Val Verde County residents were scheduled to receive the second dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination Saturday at the Del Rio Civic Center.
“What we’re doing here today is the second round vaccinations of the Pfizer vaccine for approximately 2,376 people in the community,” said Linda Walker, Val Verde Regional Medical Center chief executive officer, inside the civic center vaccination site.
Those arriving to receive their second dose of the vaccine entered the Red Oak Ballroom, where they were asked to fill out paperwork to track their demographics, then directed to one of five rows of tables where the vaccine boosters were administered by teams of nurses and student nurses.
Walker said the event was more ambitious than any held so far.
“We were pushed back a week by the snowstorm, so instead of doing around 1,100 (vaccinations), it came in all at once, and that’s why we’ve got almost 2,400 people to vaccinate today,” Walker said.
Walker commented on the smooth flow of residents arriving to get their vaccinations and the small army of volunteers working in many capacities to make that happen.
“We have a lot of volunteers. The nursing students have been amazing. Really just getting everyone scheduled and getting them here has been somewhat of a challenge, but when you put it out there, and there’s opportunities, the people of the community are taking those opportunities,” Walker said.
“It’s a very smooth operation. We’ve done this multiple times. We did it on a smaller scale at the hospital and really got good at it and then we expanded it, and now it’s an assembly line, and we’ve got lots of vaccinators, about three per table and we have five tables, so we’ve got about 15 people being vaccinated at any given time,” Walker added.
She said the teams were vaccinating 350 to 380 persons an hour.
Val Verde County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. also commented on the smooth and efficient flow.
“It is unreal. Unreal. They booked so many people the first hour, and they did such a good job that they started sending out emails and text messages for more people to show up, and we’ve had bigger groups every hour,” Owens said.
The county judge called the workers and volunteers “amazing.”
“We’ve never done anything like this, of this magnitude. The smaller ones were good practice, but we had two Saturdays to do what we’re doing in one Saturday today,” Owens said.
“It’s unbelievable what everyone here is doing,” the county judge added.
