Guadalupe County hopeful for another mass vaccine clinic soon

Seguin, TX, USA / Seguin Today

Cindy Aguirre

(Seguin) – Guadalupe County officials say they are ready for round 2 and are just waiting for the state to send more vaccines to the community.

Showing the state that it can get the job done, Guadalupe County Judge Kyle Kutscher says after last week’s successful administration of 5,000 COVID-19 vaccines at the Seguin Coliseum, he is hopeful to get even more people vaccinated.

“I’m really proud of the work that we are doing here with our partners and all the cities in the county and even New Braunfels and Comal County, looking at regional approach and assisting each other in any way possible. I know for those individuals that got an appointment and got a vaccine, they were very complimentary, very thankful and surprised how efficient the whole process was. For those individuals unable to get an appointment and were frustrated with the process on sign-up, I’ve tried to explain it to individuals that I talked to personally on the phone or in-person down at the event that were unsuccessful to get a shot is just we have 130,000 age eligible individuals in the county that can receive a vaccine and we’ve only had 5,000 or 6,000 vaccines last week so it’s just a sheer numbers game,” said Kutscher.

Touting its success this past week in administering 5,000 vaccines over a course of three days, Patrick Pinder, the Guadalupe County emergency management coordinator, says the county has already resubmitted enhancements of its vaccine plan to the state.

“We were able to determine that we could probably do 2,500 people a day out of the Seguin Coliseum so if the state continues to push those high number of doses here, we are going to continue to have those vaccine allocations. One of the things that we did do in the previous week was we teamed up with Schertz and redid our plan, so we included Schertz’s location and then the county’s location and then resubmitted to the state. Previously, we submitted a plan with GRMC only using the Coliseum, so we now submitted a plan showing the Schertz Civic Center as a second location and our plan moving forward is whenever those vaccines, we are going to split them 50/50. So, if we get 5,000 and Schertz gets none, we’re going to give 2,500 so that those doses are going to each side of the county every week that we are giving those allocations,” said Pinder.

Pinder says it’s important that Guadalupe County continues to demonstrate to the state why it’s ready to serve as a hub for the vaccines. He says one of the requirements for the label is the ability to vaccinate thousands of people at a time.

‘We’ve seen in the last few years that Guadalupe County has started to see more vaccines. I’ve reached out to state officials trying to get that hub status. That’s our goal. If we could at least get 1,000 to 2,000 a week, we can pick a day and always have those vaccines ready on that day and be consistent,” said Pinder.

Not only are the numbers important but Pinder says Guadalupe County has demonstrated a smooth and quick delivery of the vaccine.

“We actually tracked it from front door, to shot to get to your second appointment, it was less than five minutes. So, by the time you walked through the front door, by the time you were sitting for your 15-minute wait, it was less than five minutes, and we were running 260 an hour through that site on Thursday and Friday. We had 80 appointments every 20 minutes. We were pushing them through there as fast as we could. That was the goal just to make sure we could get everybody vaccinated at the end of the day but there was nobody there because we had already pretty much vaccinated everybody that was in the system. The numbers that we pushed through the Coliseum are what the numbers that they are looking at doing in Dallas and Houston. They are looking at doing hubs that can push 2,500 people day. We have a facility that can do that here,” said Pinder.

Kutscher says the health of all citizens in the county is priority and commits to not only solicit more doses of the vaccine but also to get them to where they need to go.

“I just want to let the public know that all of us on commissioners court, all the cities, our mayors, the partners, and the hospital that we are working with, everybody is committed to get as many vaccines as we possibly can for Guadalupe County residents doing everything we can. I think those partnerships are going to be extremely important as we move forward between the city of Seguin, city of Schertz with EMS, Cibolo and the hospital working together to split those doses but then like we talked about to even streamline the process more is take any additional doses that we get out of those vials and not draw them at the end of the day to go out into the smaller communities in the county like New Berlin and Marion and Kingsbury and Staples and all those places so we can go out to get those more vulnerable populations within the county. So, we had that discussion with the mayors this morning – great conversation, great partnerships. I told one of the reporters that we are more confident than ever that our community is able to handle anything. Seeing people come together the way that we did last week is really inspiring so I want to say thank you to everybody who put in the time and the effort,” said Kutscher.

Commissioner Pct.2 Drew Engelke also applauds the county and other team players in assuring the health and safety of area residents. Engelke, who was also on hand at last week’s vaccine clinic, says Guadalupe County has more than demonstrated that it’s ready for another mass round of vaccines.

“You would think that we have done this for years as efficient as it was. The efforts with the county, the city, the hospital, everybody coordinating the team effort. Being involved myself with it, streamlined very efficient. There were people walking in, some people crying because they were just so excited that we had this to offer to them. It was an outstanding effort by the community to come together and we are ready for more. Let the public know, we are waiting on the state. We are ready. We’ve got a great plan. Working together, we are going to get this done,” said Engelke.

Upon receiving news from the state, all updates about future COVID-19 vaccinations will be posted on the city of Seguin and Guadalupe County websites. Immediate details on the next mass vaccination clinic and how you can sign up will also posted on our website at seguintoday.com.

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