On Friday morning, the City of Brownsville held its first vaccination clinic at the ITEC Center where 2,000 attendees of 65 years and older received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The vaccination clinic opened at 6 a.m. and it is the first city-led COVID-19 vaccination clinic in Brownsville. The event was in partnership with The Brownsville Independent School District, Texas Southmost College and Cameron County.
Mayor Trey Mendez said the event came together very quickly with a lot of people involved and a lot of hard work over the last three days to put it together.
The city received the 2,000 vaccines from Cameron County with the caveat that they were for those 65 years and older.
“As we are out here today (Friday) we see that it is very efficient and there’s a couple of things obviously that could be corrected. That’s going to be every time,” he said around 10 a.m.
“But we did a lot of really good things today and a lot of people are getting vaccinated. We are going to get through this probably close to noon or 1 p.m. they’re all going to be gone and it’s just a testament of how hard everybody worked really.”
Residents started to line up at 4 a.m. and hundreds more were seeing arriving throughout the morning. On average, 400 vaccines were administered per hour at the 15 vaccine spots by BISD nurses, officials said.
To avoid people having to wait in line, the city implemented an online registration system that filled up within 30 minutes. For those with no internet access, the city also registered 500 people via telephone.
While the clinic was running smoothly with no complaints from attendees, Mendez said there are always things that can be improved. He said for next time he would like to have some time slots so that residents show up to get their vaccine at different times instead of all showing up at the same time.
“The online registration was very, very helpful. It avoided people having to wait in line to get any sort of vouchers or just waiting in line on a first-come first-serve basis, which we wanted to avoid. The point was just to eliminate long lines, to eliminate wait. We can’t help that some people still want to show up early, but everybody who was confirmed is going to get a vaccine today,” he said.
“The online registration, I think if we can do it to where there is maybe set appointment blocks, maybe a couple hour blocks would be helpful that way not everybody shows up at the same time. Getting certain information from individuals beforehand would be helpful. Some of the time today has been used in confirming documents, confirming information, having people actually fill out the forms. If those were done online or the people brought them, by the time they showed up, it would have made things a lot smoother and faster.”
BISD Superintendent Rene Gutierrez said it is important for the school district to partner with the city for events like this one because they help the community. He said he is hopeful teachers and workers at BISD will be able to get the vaccines soon so that they can go back to the classroom safely.
“This is for the community and it takes an effort of the city, the school district, as well as the county to make sure that we can service the community with the vaccines because it takes a lot of work, a lot of preparation and it takes a team effort to make sure that everything is running smoothly,” he said.
“I’m hoping that we can get our staff from the Brownsville Independent School District with the vaccine as soon as possible because the sooner we can do that, the sooner that our kids can go back to the classroom and have that face- to – face instruction. We are hoping that we are a couple of weeks or months away from that.”
Alejandra Aldrete, a TSC Board of Trustee, said it is very important for the college to offer the facilities for events like this one. She said working together is what makes events successful.
“Partnering with TSC, BISD and the city, working together, that’s what makes this possible,” she said. “It is running smoothly, we have 15 stations, people already pre-registered, they are checking the lists and making sure that they’re 65 years and older so that we can prioritize for our elderly.”
When it comes to the next vaccination clinics, Mendez said they want to do it as quickly as possible and hopes the State sends vaccines in the next three weeks. He said he recommends those who have received the vaccine to continue to exercise safety measures.
“We want to do it as quickly possible, hopefully within the next two to three weeks. It’s really not up to us, unfortunately, it is up to the State as far as how quickly they can get us those vaccines,” he said.
“They’ve been requested, we’ve been approved as a hub, so the next step is just to get the vaccines from the State. It seems like today we started the system, we see what works and the next time is going to be even better. And they are going to continue to get better. We just need the vaccines from the State.”
