COVID-19 vaccine clinic to open at Sumter County Civic Center
Prisma Health is opening a COVID-19 vaccine clinic at the Sumter County Civic Center this month with a goal to expand the number of shots it can administer daily as supply increases.
The clinic will open at the civic center, 700 W. Liberty St. at the Sumter County Fairgrounds, on Monday, March 15. Dr. Saria Saccocio, ambulatory chief medical officer and co-lead of Prisma’s vaccine task force, said during a media briefing Friday they are already transferring appointments to the new location and that the current site, located on Calhoun Street across from Prisma Health Tuomey Hospital, will be closed March 11-15 so staff and volunteers running the sites can make the move.
People who have appointments during that time will be rescheduled, Saccocio said.
The move comes as the state opens vaccine eligibility to about 2.7 million more South Carolinians for Phase 1B, including anyone age 55 or older as well as anyone 16 or older with high-risk medical conditions and frontline essential workers with a heightened risk of exposure in their workplace, such as teachers, grocery store and gas station employees and law enforcement officers.
About 1.3 million have been eligible in the state’s first phase of the rollout, which has included people age 65 or older and medical workers. As of Thursday, the state has received more than 1.3 million doses and has administered 1.02 million shots, according to state public health data. Only 326,802 people have been fully vaccinated.
Part of the rollout to vaccinate teachers is to match each district with a provider. Prisma is working with six school districts, including Sumter School District, but Saccocio said teachers don’t need to wait for that partnership to get their shots.
“If you can get the vaccine, get it. Stand in line, step up, and get that shot,” she said.
To help increase the number of shots getting into arms is the arrival of the U.S.’ third FDA-emergency-authorized vaccine. Prisma should receive 1,200 doses of the new Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine by Monday.
The J&J vaccine only requires one dose and can be stored in regular refrigeration, unlike those from Pfizer and Moderna that require two doses and extreme cold storage. Prisma is using its J&J allocation to reach homeless and homebound populations as well as providers that have identified its population with a “high vulnerability index.”
Prisma received its first 600-shot allotment of the J&J vaccine on Friday, one day before the one-year anniversary of the first two COVID-19 cases being reported in South Carolina.
Since then, 448,275 people in the state have tested positive for the virus, and 7,697 have died, according to Friday’s numbers.
New daily cases have been steadily decreasing since a Jan. 8 peak, though the state’s seven-day moving average is still where it was at about mid-November.