Giant Eagle vaccinated nearly 1500 Pittsburgh Public Schools workers at Heinz Field Thursday as part of an effort to get teachers and students back into the classroom.
Between Thursday's clinic at Heinz Field, which administered the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine and a clinic for PPS staff at Pittsburgh Obama, which administered the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, PPS Superintendent Dr.
Anthony Hamlet believes about 3000 staff will be at least partly vaccinated by next week.
"People are happy," he said. "People are smiling. They're jovial. They're excited. Again, this is another layer of mitigation strategy that we put in place to support them. This really urges them to get back into the classroom because this helps."
The PPS clinic was initially set for Thursday and Friday, but a Giant Eagle spokesperson said based on the positive turnout to Thursday's clinic, PPS yielded Friday's appointments to general Phase 1A.
Related
Giant Eagle said about 1600 Phase 1A appointments for Friday's clinic filled Wednesday night.
Thursday's clinic differed from the state's initiative to vaccinate educators with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Giant Eagle chief pandemic officer Vic Vercammen said they were contacted by the Biden Administration to vaccinate more educators with additional shipments of the Pfizer vaccine.
Related
He said the supply they're using does not cut into the supply of Pfizer vaccine reserved for Phase 1A.
"This is in addition to, not instead of," he said. "People that are thinking that senior citizens or others with chronic medical conditions are being disadvantaged, that's not the case. We continue to run our community pharmacy events in parallel. We will have events for qualifying members of the public here at Heinz Field, also."
Giant Eagle will also be expanding their Heinz Field clinics next week to include all eligible school staff in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Vercammen said appointments will be posted tomorrow on Giant Eagle's website for clinics Monday and Tuesday.
School workers are also eligible to schedule a vaccine appointment at one of Giant Eagle's stores.