Health & Fitness
Mass Vaccination Site To Open At Former Batavia Sam’s Club
Officials are set to convert 20,000 square feet of vacant retail space into a mass vaccination clinic that will operate six days a week.
BATAVIA, IL — Kane County will soon get its first mass vaccination site after officials approved a contract Tuesday to rent 20,000 square feet of space at the former Sam’s Club in Batavia.
Officials are hopeful the converted facility at 501 N. Randall Road will be up and running later this month, with the site to act as the county’s main vaccination site through at least the end of October.
Find out what's happening in Bataviafor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Kane County Board Chair Corinne Pierog said officials presented the Illinois Department of Public Health with several potential locations for mass vaccination sites. State officials recommended converting the former Sam’s Club in Batavia, as well as the former Big Lots store in Carpentersville.
County officials were hoping to open a second mass vaccination site in Carpentersville but later decided it would be more cost-effective to only have one, the Kane County Chronicle reports.
Find out what's happening in Bataviafor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Pierog said the Batavia site is accessible by public transportation and will help Kane County better serve its minority populations, who are receiving vaccines at lower rates than white residents.
As of Wednesday, Latino residents have received 11 percent of all doses administered in Kane County, despite representing just under a third of the county's population, according to statistics from the Illinois Department of Public Health and U.S. Census Bureau.
Black residents, who make up about 6 percent of Kane County's population, have received just 3 percent of all doses administered there, the state's data shows.
More than 73 percent of all coronavirus vaccine doses administered in the county by Wednesday were given to white people, who make up about 57 percent of the county's population.
Thousands Get Coronavirus Vaccines At Mass Clinic In Aurora
Though the county’s first mass clinic will not be located in the county’s biggest city, Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin agreed it “would be close enough” to adequately serve residents, Pierog said Tuesday.
“Aurora is not forgotten about,” Pierog said, adding officials will reach out to organizations in the city to coordinate transportation to the site for residents.
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