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Try not to miss your shot at getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
UPMC Williamsport is distributing COVID-19 vaccines to area residents through a streamlined process at the Hope Enterprises Community Center at 2401 Reach Road in Newberry.
Patients must sign up online at vaccine.upmc.com or can alternatively call 844-UPMC-VAC. Either option will allow those who qualify under phase 1-A's provisions to schedule an appointment from a list of times the following weekend.
So long as patients register and leave a phone number with UPMC, the hospital will reach out and help them schedule an appointment over the phone.
Heather Stafford, UPMC's clinical director for infection prevention and control and nursing education, said that helps the hospital reach a senior population that may not be the most well-equipped to access tools online.
"We wanted to make the process as easy for the public as possible," Stafford said.
That process includes a signup, remote scheduling, then a 20-minute in-person visit to the clinic itself. Patients get the shot in their arm within five minutes of entering the building, and, after a fifteen-minute waiting period, are free to go.
This past weekend was the second clinic UPMC ran. The Saturday before that, on March 20, UPMC held its first, and vaccinated around 1,138 -- although Stafford said she is certain UPMC could easily put 1,500 shots into county resident's arms if enough people signed up.
That is a sizable number for one weekend, considering Lycoming County is sitting at around 16,000 people fully vaccinated.
UPMC has scheduled patients to return to the clinic three weeks after their original shot to receive their second injection. Whereas those receiving their first shot come on Saturday, those receiving their second shot will come Sunday, keeping a consistent flow, according to Stafford.
The amount of people UPMC can fit into a single weekend is dependent on how many shots the federal government chooses to allot to UPMC Williamsport in a given week. However, Stafford said because of how precise UPMC's scheduling formula is, there are seldom any wasted shots -- and if someone is scheduled to receive their second dose, they will always receive it.
UPMC also has other programs in-place to bring the vaccine to populations at senior communities, where it may be harder for patients to come get the vaccine themselves.