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FARMINGTON — Anticipating the current COVID-19 trend and pending guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on booster shots will bring a spike in vaccine demand in the coming weeks, Davis County health officials said they're working to reopen a mass vaccination site.
"We think the convenience and just the way it went, people are comfortable coming here," Dave Spence, deputy director of the Davis County Health Department, said, referring to the Legacy Events Center in Farmington.
From December 2020 to June 2021, the center was a drive-thru clinic for anyone to receive their vaccine.
After providing more than 222,000 doses of the vaccine, demand dwindled, physicians and pharmacies stepped in and, like so many other vaccine sites around the state, the Legacy Center closed its doors to the shot.
Now, with the current troubling trend of COVID-19, state leaders are again stressing the need to get the vaccine to combat the effects of COVID-19 and slow the spread.
The CDC recommends those who are immunocompromised get a third dose, and in the coming weeks, they're expected to recommend everyone get a booster shot eight months after they received their second dose.
"We are anticipating there is going to be a ramp-up and a need for this convenient place," Spence said.
"The urgency is to get everybody vaccinated," said Wendy Garcia, nursing director at the health department.
Garcia emphasized getting the shot to protect the unvaccinated, including children who are not eligible.
"Let's protect them. Let's get everybody else vaccinated around them," she said.
We are anticipating there is going to be a ramp-up and a need for this convenient place.
–Dave Spence, Davis County Health Department
Reopening the site takes a lot of work, and Davis County health is hiring to fill several positions, including volunteer positions.
Spence said they're waiting for further guidance from the CDC, but he anticipates opening the site by the end of September, which would be eight months after the first group of health care workers received their second dose of the vaccine.
"I think vaccinations are the proven way that we're going to get out of this," Spence said.
