Public Health streamlines clinic operations, vaccination total passes 13,000

Over 13,000 of Guam's residents have joined in the effort to spread immunity in the community. KUAM News visited Okkodo High in Dededo to get the latest on Public Health's vaccination clinic.

This week, the agency will be administering the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine to Phase 1B individuals – those island residents ages 75 and older. DPHSS serviced over 400 people, surpassing the initial 380 goal. Public information Janela Carrera said, "We've got a decent amount of people showing up…the flow is very smooth, very little-to-no traffic at all. And so I think all of the challenges that we faced early on when we first opened our vaccination clinic, we improved that system a lot. So there's not a lot of crowding going on and a lot of people are very much satisfied with how much we've improved our system."

The vaccination clinic at the Okkodo High campus will continue tomorrow, as well as Saturday at 8:30am. Starting Wednesday, however, Public Health will open their new vaccination clinic in Mangilao at the University of Guam's Calvo Field House, continuing the second dose for Phase 1B. Thursday will follow suit, including the vaccination of law enforcement and frontline essential workers.

 

The Southern Region Community Health Center in Inarajan will begin servicing Phase 1C individuals 60 and older for the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine from January 19-23, also at 8:30am.

"On January 14, we received 7,200 doses of the Moderna vaccine and then on January 16 we received 7,800 of the Pfizer vaccine - so that's a total of 15,000 doses," Carrera confirmed. "So we finally received all of our January allocation, so we were very much excited because we have another decent amount of vaccines to be able to give to the people of Guam. And that's, of course, with the eligibility criteria for the different phases."

Over the weekend, DPHSS launched a rapid engagement team as well as a virtual town hall meeting that focused on the Federated States of Micronesia community at the Santa Ana Subdivision in Dededo.

"They actually had some questions about the vaccine, as well the interest from them was pretty high," she continued. "And we were very excited about that as well so we gave out educational material about the vaccines and when they had questions we were there to answer a lot of their questions about the vaccine. We told them you know, when it's your turn please come and get vaccinated, and so we're looking forward to seeing a higher participation from the Micronesian community and the FSM community."

Out of 102 tests conducted, zero returned positive.