CAIRO, Ga. (WTXL) — As soon as new vaccines become available, Grady County Emergency Management officials plan to open this drive-thru site at Cairo High School.
Health officials are planning to vaccinate between 100 and 150 people per day when this new vaccination distribution opens.
"What we're going to do is, the two rooms on either side of the drive-thru, will let cars drive through the middle of the building," said Richard Phillips, Grady County Emergency Management Agency director. "The two sides will be where the nurses will work out of if we have any weather, like cold weather or something like that. We can heat it up or whatever we need to do to help protect our health care providers that are doing all this work."
The department of health chose Cairo High School because it proved to be a perfect site to manage traffic flow and offer more hours to distribute shots to the community.
"One of the things that they looked at was the timing of when they would give the vaccination and they are going to do it after school hours and they're also going to do it on weekends, so that worked out for the school," said Cairo High School Principal Chris Lokey.
In Lowndes County, the health department has canceled about 13-hundred appointments. Courtney Sheeley adds they also have few replenishment doses available.
"Right now we are getting very small shipments on a weekly basis so like this week in Lowndes County, we got about 300 doses in which helps us ensure that people that need their second dose that they will be covered," said Sheeley.
But, Sheeley warns, it doesn't give them enough doses for them to schedule a new first appointment yet.
Once vaccine supply becomes more plentiful in South Georgia, the site at Cairo High and others will be ready to open.
