The University of Rochester Medical Center opened a downtown COVID-19 vaccination clinic on Friday. It’s located at Manhattan Square Family Medicine on East Broad Street.
John Clark is Regional Administrative Director with URMC’s Center for Primary Care. He said they started off with a small number of vaccinations on Friday, but they expect to ramp that up in the weeks ahead.
“This was targeted at patients of ours who are 65 years and older, and in particular patients who live in the city. We’re hoping really to use the Manhattan Square site as our platform for reaching people in the inner city.” Clark said that URMC will launch a second vaccination clinic in the next week at the university’s campus.
Clark said that eventually, they would like to be able to vaccine a couple of thousand people per day and that will require opening up dedicated mass vaccination clinics.
“We’d want to have a site that is accessible by public transportation, is large enough to accommodate social distancing that we need and that of course is handicapped accessible. We found several good spots and just need to work our way through those.” Clark expects that URMC can open up the new locations in February.
On Saturday, Jordan Health launched its first series of COVID-19 vaccination clinics. Jordan partnered with Monroe County and received 440 doses of the Moderna vaccine. Due to the limited supply, the first series of vaccination clinics are by appointment only. Jordan Health officials have not yet been told when they will get the additional vaccine doses, but when they arrive, Jordan will contact eligible patients.