Bessemer COVID-19 Vaccine Location Closing

BESSEMER, AL — The FEMA-funded COVID-19 vaccination site in Bessemer will close June 17. The Community Vaccination Center at the WaterMark Place opened April 21 with the goal of administering up to 1,000 vaccines per day.

The site was apart of a $51.6 million program from FEMA to provide vaccination sites in strategically placed locations in the state.

The site was identified using a range of criteria, The White House said, but the main indicator was the Centers for Disease Control's Social Vulnerability Index, created to help emergency response planners and public health officials identify and map communities that will most likely need support before, during, and after a hazardous event. The index takes into consideration critical data points, including socioeconomic status, household composition, minority status, languages, housing type and transportation.

The Community Vaccination Center in Bessemer is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday.

"We appreciate the work of everyone who helped this center provide vaccinations to so many people," Gracia Szczech, FEMA Region IV Administrator, said in a statement Wednesday. "The center was established in a location accessible to socially vulnerable populations and it was successful in its mission. Now, FEMA will continue to support the State of Alabama and local communities with resources as they reach deeper into communities."

Alabama ranks 50th out of all states and the District of Columbia in percentage of population vaccinated. Mississippi ranks 51st.

As of Thursday, 29.3 percent of Alabama's population has received the vaccine. A total of 136,155,250 Americans had been fully vaccinated, or 41 percent of the country's population, according to the CDC's data.