There are now 20 vaccination clinics across Santa Clara County, with several new sites opening within just the past week.
San José Spotlight has created an interactive map to show where eligible residents can get their vaccines. Santa Clara County is continuing to open new sites in communities hardest hit by COVID-19, including Gilroy and East San Jose.
Each location is accessible via Valley Transportation Authority bus services. The authority is also working with the county to maintain its own interactive map with updated vaccination site locations here.
The county has rapidly expanded its vaccination capacity since the first shots were given to health care workers in December. Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors President Mike Wasserman said during an address last week the county has the capacity to vaccinate 100,000 residents per day — but it still grapples with limited vaccine supply from the state.
Supervisor Cindy Chavez helped open the county’s latest site Friday at Valley Health Center, East Valley, located on 1993 McKee Road in the heart of East San Jose. This marks the sixth clinic in East Side, an area hit hardest by COVID-19 and has the lowest vaccine rates.
“One of the reasons we are here is because we know people who live, work, play and pray in this community are heavily impacted by COVID-19 with illness and with death,” Chavez said.
Supervisor Otto Lee also celebrated the new clinic opening Friday and encouraged residents to take advantage of it.
“The best thing we can do right now is trust the vaccines. They are safe,” Lee said. His own parents were recently vaccinated. “Trust me; I wouldn’t send my parents to get the vaccine if they weren’t safe.”
The East Valley health center is only taking appointments. East San Jose also has a pop-up clinic, the Public Health Story Road Hub at 1775 Story Road, in addition to Mexican Heritage Plaza, Emmanuel Baptist Church, North East Medical Services and Berger Drive Auditorium.
The Story Road Hub pop-up clinic is open starting at 8:30 a.m. every Thursday and Friday.
Wasserman also introduced another new vaccine site in Santa Clara County at Gilroy High School. Along with East San Jose, Gilroy has seen some of the highest rates of COVID-19 transmission in the county. Until recently, Gilroy residents received about 20% to 30% fewer vaccines than other, wealthier parts of the county, including Los Gatos, Palo Alto and Almaden Valley.
“Vaccinating our community as quickly and equitably as possible is the key to returning to some sort of normalcy as soon as possible,” Wasserman said.
There are now four vaccine sites open in Gilroy and one in Morgan Hill: The Valley Health Center in Gilroy, Gardner South County Health Center, Gilroy High School, Gilroy Senior Center and Morgan Hill Community Center
Pop-up clinics can move around neighborhoods, apartment complexes, agricultural businesses and other areas in need of vaccine access, said Tracy Stephens, health center manager for the county’s health system.
Last month, the county opened a mass vaccination site at Levi’s Stadium, the largest site in California.
Associate Chief Medical Officer for Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, Dr. Jennifer Tong, said the county would add a second shift of workers at Levi Stadium as early as this week, which will be open seven days a week.
Santa Clara County health providers have administered more than 322,000 doses of vaccine as of Friday. More than 130,000 residents have received both doses of the vaccine.
County residents can visit www.sccfreevax.org for more information or make an appointment.
Contact Madelyn Reese at [email protected] or follow @MadelynGReese on Twitter.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.