Coronavirus

Vaccine and Volunteers

Thousands served by Elkins clinic

ELKINS -- In recent weeks, thousands of people have been flocking to the Phil Gainer Community Center for COVID-19 mass vaccination clinics.

The regionals event focus on providing coronavirus vaccinations to residents from Randolph, Barbour, Tucker, Upshur, Webster and Pendleton counties. A tremendous amount of planning and coordination is required for these events to be successful,

Davis Health System's Chad Ware, the vaccination clinic coordinator for the events, has tackled that challenge and is dedicated to making sure the vaccination process is as effortless for the public as possible.

"When we started we really didn't know how it was going to roll out, so we didn't know exactly what we would need from the standpoint of volunteers," Ware said. "But once we got started we started realizing the type of community we live in. It's a small town and people just want to feel like they're a part of something. They're willing to help out any way they can.

"Things have gone excellent, and the community involvement mixed with the hospital, Valley Health Care, the Health Department, Mountain Hospice, and Rescare has been tremendous," he said. "There are so many entities that have come together to make it run smoothly from the time people enter the door until the time they exit. I could not ask for better coordination between everybody from start to finish. It's been wonderful."

Ware also said the clinics have been an outlet for people to get out and do something they haven't done for a while -- socialize.

"COVID has really left a lot of people feeling helpless," Ware said. "Feeling that they can't go here, or they can't help with this. Socially, a lot of them haven't been out for a while so when they come here they get to interact with people and sometimes see folks they have seen in a longtime. It really gives them an opportunity to come out and be a part of something that I think is kind of historic and unprecedented in our lifetime."

The clinic hosted more than 1,800 citizens for vaccinations this week, including 1,200 for second doses on Thursday. Nursing students from local colleges and retired registered nurses have been volunteering and helping administer the doses.

Ware said the clinics use between 30 to 40 volunteers for a full-day schedule, which runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Around 15 of those will be runners and perform table cleanup, between 10 and 15 will be vaccinators, and then there are those who do data entry. Several members of the National Guard were onsite to perform data entry Thursday.

"From the front door, through the registration, to the people that have to sit the citizens down, our workers have really streamlined the process," Ware said. "It's been a top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top effort from everyone involved."

"We try to do the scheduling for our clinics on Tuesday of every week," he added. "We work off a list from that schedule and then if we have weather or anything else come up, we do have a standby list that we utilize to get people in."

Scheduling for the vaccinations is done through the state of West Virginia and the Eventbrite System, which supplies the list of those to be vaccinated.

"We have a list at the hospital that we work from to make phone calls to people if there is a cancellation due to weather or anything else," said Ware. "For the Pfizer vaccine we want to make sure we can get those doses out right away, but for Moderna it's got a longer shelf life where we can actually put it back in and store it. But with Pfizer, once we draw it up we have to use it."

Ware said others have helped out from afar with the clinics.

"Each week we have a sponsor for the food we feed the volunteers," he said. "We try to get them a light breakfast and then feed them lunch. We've had private donors give us money for lunch and several community groups come forward to help out. A lot of different people and groups have come through and been a part of this as well."

Ware said the mass vaccination clinics are expected to run for the foreseeable future, and that volunteers will continue to be a big part of the clinics' continued success.

"From what they are telling me, we are potentially going to have clinics clear up until October," Ware said. "So we can always use more volunteers."

To register to become a volunteer, email Ware at warec@davishealthsytem.org.