Columbus Public Health is making efforts to vaccinate impoverished and displaced people through mobile vaccination clinics.
“We knew that not everyone would have the ability to come to one of our freestanding vaccine clinics when it was Columbus Public Health, one of our hospital partners or even our pharmacies,” Columbus Health commissioner Mysheika Roberts said at an event Thursday.
So far, the city has given close to 1,400 COVID-19 vaccines at its mobile sites, with about being 950 first doses and 400 being second doses.
Columbus Public Health on Thursday distributed second rounds of the vaccine to residents at Parsons Place, a low-income apartment complex on the South Side.
“This is a location where individuals don’t have reliable transportation,” Roberts says. “They all live here, so we can find individuals easily, and they meet the category for 1A, which the state spelled out for individuals living in congregated care settings.”
Right now, Columbus Public Health is not vaccinating people who live outside or in homeless camps.
“The homeless living on the land don’t necessarily meet the criteria yet because it has to be congregate living,” Roberts says. “So they’re not included in that, even though you could say they’re congregated in a camp. But it’s not part of the state’s phase yet.”
Roberts is not sure when people living in homeless camps will be eligible for the vaccine.
The city averages two to three mobile vaccination clinics a day, Monday through Friday. It has hosted 30 mobile vaccination sites since January 18.
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