The VSU site is helping vaccinate residents from Chesterfield and Crater health districts. Crater is the largest geographical health district in Virginia, stretching south to Emporia and east to Surry County.
Officials said that they are still working through several segments of Phase 1B, which includes essential workers who cannot work remotely, like firefighters, child care workers and grocery store workers. With the mass number of vaccinations added to the area they expect to push into Phase 1C within a few weeks.
The Multi-Purpose Center is being supplied with the Pfizer vaccine. Officials said that second doses will also be scheduled to be administered at VSU.
More: State chooses Petersburg and VSU to host mass-vaccination clinics starting next week
More: State chooses Petersburg and VSU to host mass-vaccination clinics starting next week
Officials said that vaccines at VSU will be given only to people who live within the two health districts based on their registration through Virginia Department of Health website. Vaccine recipients have to show some form of identification to verify their information VDH system before getting a shot.
It takes 150 people to staff the clinic daily, from vaccinators, to greeters, backroom logistics staff and observers. It will be open Monday through Saturday.
This is the third statewide clinic started by the Virginia Department of Emergency Management to increase vaccine rollout. Other VDEM sites in Portsmouth and Danville started earlier this week with Prince William slated to be the next with more to come. These sites are intended to augment shots from local pharmacies, health districts and healthcare facilities.
The Multi-Purpose Center was chosen because of its capacity and central location in the region. The initial clinics are targeted at the top 20% of vulnerable communities in the localities.
State officials said that VSU has long been in consideration as a clinic, even before a vaccine had been developed.
"We knew that based on trends, analysis and history that our most vulnerable communities would need an extra boost to ensure equitable distribution of the COVID vaccination across the Commonwealth," said Alaysia Hackett, chief diversity officer of the governor's Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
Petersburg has so far administered 6,300 total doses, Hopewell has 3,800, Colonial Heights 4,300, Dinwiddie 5,400 and Prince George 6,200, according to the VDH COVID19 Dashboard.
By Tuesday March 16, Chesterfield County had vaccinated roughly 68,000 residents with at least one dose. It's goal is to vaccinate 75% of its residents in the coming months.
VDEM is identifying more sites to open across the state based on specific communities and its needs.
"We've identified locations across the Commonwealth and we're working with the locals there to identify the best approach. Is it a small site that we need, is it a 1,000 or a 3,000 (capacity venue) or a large site? So we're working through that."
VDEM is also working with faith centers and schools is an additional consideration in spreading distribution.
As more vaccines become available the parameters for registration and distribution could change to meet different needs.
You can reach Sean Jones at sjones@progress-index.com. Follow him at @SeanJones_PI. Follow The Progress-Index on Twitter at @ProgressIndex.
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This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: With a potential 6K shots per day, Virginia's largest mass-vaccination clinic opens at VSU
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