2 Mobile Vaccination Units In MD To Reach Underserved Populations

REISTERSTOWN, MD — Mobile vaccination sites will roll through Maryland starting this weekend, the first in the nation as part of a federal program to bring COVID-19 vaccines to those who may otherwise be unable to get to them.

The Maryland Department of Health and Maryland Emergency Management Agency this week unveiled the rolling clinics, which will be staffed by trained vaccinators and clinical personnel from local, state and federal agencies.

The mobile clinics will serve eastern Maryland communities as well as and migrant and minority populations, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is funding the operation. Mobile sites will have pop-out awnings and dividers. People will receive their vaccine on one side of the trailer and move to the opposite side for observation afterward, according to FEMA.

"Earlier today the first federal mobile vaccination units in the nation arrived at the Maryland Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Reisterstown," Gov. Larry Hogan said at a news conference Thursday.

"In the coming days, these 32-foot trailers will be fanning out across the state together along with special FEMA strike teams to help us get more shots into arms and remote areas and ZIP codes that rank high on the CDC's social vulnerability index," Hogan said at Thursday's news conference where he announced all Marylanders age 16 and up could preregister for a COVID-19 vaccine.

We are rolling up to Maryland! Today, supplies are being delivered to Mobile Vaccination Units - generators, cones, A/C unit, and other gear in preparation for opening to serve under-vaccinated areas. #GoVaxMaryland pic.twitter.com/DIJoVpmZLk
— FEMA Region 3 (@FEMAregion3) April 2, 2021

"This operation builds on the mobile clinics that the state launched last month with the Maryland Vaccine Equity Task Force, which has completed or is in the process of completing nearly 100 missions," Hogan said. "They're adding additional clinics nearly every single day, including this week at Mount Zion Church in Harford County, Sacred Heart Church in Baltimore City, and the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring."

These groups will be targeted specifically by the mobile vaccination units, according to FEMA:

• Manufacturing and food processing plant workers in eastern Maryland, especially in poultry processing operations.
• Minority and migrant populations, and those who may lack adequate transportation to a standstill vaccination site.
• Residents in small towns and enclaves in eastern Maryland, streamlining vaccination access.

Vaccines are free and will be administered to all, according to Janice Barlow, acting regional administrator for FEMA in the region serving Maryland.

"This administration's view is that everyone should have access to safe, effective, cost-free COVID vaccines regardless of their immigration status," Barlow said at a news conference this week in Reisterstown, where the units were unveiled at the Maryland Emergency Management Agency's headquarters.

Of the more than 1 million residents in Maryland fully vaccinated against coronavirus, 40,745 were Hispanic or Latino, according to state vaccination data released Friday, April 2; that means this population accounts for 3.9 percent of those fully vaccinated in Maryland, a state where 10.6 percent of the population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, according to the U.S. Census.

"Getting our communities vaccinated keeps us all safe," Barlow said.

To make an appointment at the mobile vaccination clinic, people must register with the local health department in their county or city of residence, according to FEMA.

"Mobile [vaccination] brings it to the community where they are," Maryland National Guard Brigadier General Janeen Birckhead, the state's vaccine equity task force leader, told Capital News Service. "We can bring it right to your door if you're sick and shut in, and that's the only way we're going to reach community immunity."

The two mobile units now in Maryland are among 30 that will be deployed nationwide.

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“We’re excited to be the first state in the nation to include a collaboration with FEMA in our mobile vaccination efforts," Acting Maryland Department of Health Secretary Dennis R. Schrader said in a statement. "We are pleased to offer Marylanders near the path of these units the opportunity to get vaccinated close to home.”

Each trailer will provide at least 250 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine daily. It will offer the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, according to Capital News Service.

FEMA expects each unit to stay in one location for at least a few days at a time.

See Also: MD Expands Vaccine Preregistration To Residents 16 And Older

— By Patch editor Elizabeth Janney and Capital News Service correspondent Sean Mahoney. Video by Sean Mahoney of Capital News Service.