UK to operate mobile clinics aiming to vaccinate underserved, minority communities
Through a partnership with the city, state and other community partners, the University of Kentucky will be opening four mobile pop-up vaccine clinics that will aim to vaccinate medically underserved populations in the county.
The first clinic will be on Saturday at Keeneland where the track will focus on distributing the COVID-19 vaccine to members of the Hispanic community “who work in the track’s stable area and on Central Kentucky horse farms,” a Thursday release from UK stated.
Community organizations representing underserved populations are working with the university to identify and invite those who will get the shots each weekend, the university said. The clinic will be open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and will be at rotating locations across the county over the next four weekends. The state’s Department of Public Health will allot 500 vaccines per weekend. The full schedule is below.
- Feb. 20: Keeneland, 4201 Versailles Road.
- Feb. 27: First Baptist Church Bracktown, 3016 Bracktown Road.
- March 6: Shiloh Baptist Church, 237 E. Fifth Street.
- March 13: Charles Young Community Center, 540 E. Third Street.
Testing for COVID-19 will also be available at the clinics. Both the vaccines and the testing is free, the release stated. Follow-up clinics to administer booster shots will be at the same successive sites in the weekends after March 13. Walk-up appointments will not be permitted.
Lexington saw 72 new cases of COVID-19 and one new death related to the disease Thursday, raising the county’s total case count to 31,444 with 219 deaths, data from the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department shows.
Only 5.7 percent of Lexington’s first-time COVID-19 vaccine doses have gone to Black residents, Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton said last week at an event aimed at kicking off the city’s plan to focus on vaccinating underserved minority populations. Compared to white residents, Black people have been infected, hospitalized and killed by COVID-19 at higher rates.
Black people make up 17 percent of the city’s total cases, 26 percent of the city’s hospitalizations and 21 percent of the city’s deaths. Only 14.6 percent of Lexington’s population is Black, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Gorton said in UK’s Thursday announcement that there were “similar concerns for Hispanics and other minorities.”
UK and UK HealthCare physicians, nurse practitioners, pharmacists and medical and pharmacy students will staff the clinics.
The university announced on Wednesday that it was also expanding its vaccine clinic at Kroger Field to be able to vaccinate 150 more people per hour. Now the clinic can handle about 450 people per hour. UK HealthCare has administered 60,000 vaccine doses.
Anyone can register to receive the vaccine at UK’s vaccine clinic at Kroger Field at ukvaccine.org. Registering through UK’s online portal puts you in the queue to receive an emailed invitation to be vaccinated.
The information input into the portal will be entered into a database where UK HealthCare can evaluate individual requests and issue emailed invitations based on the state’s phased plan, the page states. Those who can’t access the online form or need assistance filling it out can call 859-218-0111.
“We know that access and equity for medically underserved communities — and communities of color — continues to be an issue for too many in our region and across the state,” said UK President Eli Capilouto, in a statement. “Addressing that issue requires commitment. It requires partnership. This is a role UK and UK HealthCare, the state and Lexington — along with partners in faith communities and business — can and must fill. It is part of our mission and who we are for Kentucky.”