ODESSA, Texas — 3,900 doses of the Pfizer vaccine are expected to arrive to the Medical Center Hospital early in the week of January 18, and hospital officials say that allotment from the federal government is expected to continue on a weekly basis.
With this, officials from the City of Odessa confirmed they are partnering up with the Medical Center Hospital and ECISD to set up a program that will safely allow thousands of people to get the COVID-19 vaccine in the parking lot of Ratliff Stadium.
"We're definitely excited about it, again it goes back to the partnership as a community, all of our governmental entities have to work together to fight COVID, we did that with testing, now we're doing that with the vaccine," said Phillip Urrutia, the City of Odessa's assistant city manager.
ECISD is providing the Ratliff facility to allow the mass vaccination process to go smoothly.
The city will be setting up traffic control, electricity and make available dozens of staff members to facilitate the program.
"So essentially our plans that we drew up as a city of Odessa Incident Command Post are being put into place. There are going to be lines so once people register online, with the link that will soon be available, they will come in directly to their line and they'll have nurses and paramedics that will provide the vaccine. Then they will go to another area for holding until they are able to be released," said Urrutia.
Officials say more than 50 people across departments will be working at the vaccination site daily.
The expectation, given the large quantity of vaccines headed our way, is that vaccines will soon be available to the public in the very near future.
Though that hasn't been confirmed by the hospital or the state yet.
If all goes according to plan the Ratliff facility is expected to be ready to roll out vaccines come Wednesday.
The link to MCH's registration page can be found by clicking or tapping here.
Officials are encouraging anyone who wants a vaccine in the future to register.