MEMPHIS, Tennessee — "This is an exciting time for us; we have been waiting for a big uptick," City of Memphis Chief Operating Officer Doug McGowen said.
The wait is over in Shelby County, as FEMA sets up shop along Tiger Lane in Midtown Memphis and puts the finishing touches on the state's first federal community vaccination center.
Starting next Wednesday, the site will be open 12 hours a day, seven days a week, with the ability to vaccinate 21,000 people each week for six weeks.
"It's an exciting day for us to get a significant increase in vaccines that will begin next week," McGowen said.
According to FEMA records, Memphis' vaccination site will include around 250 federal workers. The center will have specific vaccination areas for walkups, MATA passengers, and those in church vans. It doubles the Pipkin Building drive-thru lanes from two to four.
"This is the size of a football field when it's completed over the weekend and ready for operations next week," McGowen said. "This new allocation of vaccines will allow us to go faster and have more broad reach throughout the community."
Local organizers met with FEMA organizers Wednesday, with vaccine barriers dominating the discussion.
"Of the hour that we spent with them, we spent 40 minutes of that hour talking about how we will get messaging out in the community that 'this is important', how we break down barriers for those who are vaccine resistant."
A similar 'Type 2' FEMA community vaccination center opened last month in Greensboro, NC. Those partnering with that federal operation told Local 24 News it's gone smoothly so far.
"The way they are scheduling, it's never an enormous line at one time. The lines are typically flowing pretty well," said Brian Haines, the North Carolina site's public information officer. "One of the key things we've been trying to do here is get to our historically marginalized populations. We've been doing an excellent job of getting that done here in Greensboro. In fact the numbers are a lot higher than we had anticipated them being."
Haines offered this message to those getting vaccinated at Memphis' FEMA site in the coming weeks.
"They are going to see a lot of different people and a lot of moving parts, but done right, when it works smoothly, they should be able to get through without a problem," Haines said.
