PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Snagging an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccine has not been the easiest thing to do for many people who are currently eligible.
That includes restaurant workers, who are considered to be in Philadelphia’s 1b phase of essential workers.
Advocacy group Save Philly Restaurants wanted to step in to help. The group partnered with Centennial Pharmacy Services, located on Delaware Avenue in Fishtown, to vaccinate hundreds of people in the restaurant industry.
“We’re seeing more people going out, dining outside,” said Ben Fileccia, director of operations and strategy for the Philadelphia region of the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association. “We see more people getting vaccinated every day. So, all these little things combined, people see hope on the horizon now.”
“On a personal level, I want to see my parents. I miss them,” said bartender Mary Wood, who spoke to NBC10. “I haven’t seen my mom since I drove her home from heart surgery last February. I want to see things get back to normal, and I think that we’re almost there.”
Nicole Marquis, owner of HipCityVeg and organizer of the coalition, said it is not clear how long they will work with the pharmacy. They may ease some of their efforts to get workers appointments as the city picks up steam with its own vaccination campaign.
Meanwhile, Philadelphia opened its fourth community vaccination clinic on Monday at Simon Gratz High School Mastery Charter in North Philadelphia.
The Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s goal is to reach more people in the neighborhood and vaccinate up to 500 people each day it is open.
And, the community clinics are now accepting some eligible walk-ins. People without appointments can walk up to see if there’s an opening.
“We found that not all of our appointments are filling up from our invitations to the database, so we started to take in walk-in appointments for eligible people from the neighborhood,” said city Health Commissioner Dr. Tom Farley.
The other city-run community clinics that have opened so far are at the Martin Luther King Older Adult Center in North Philadelphia, the Community Academy of Philadelphia in Kensington and the University of the Sciences in West Philadelphia.
As a way to fill empty slots, Farley said they quietly started to take walk-ins at the MLK clinic over the weekend.
“It worked out just great,” he said. “We had about 100 people that came in, we had about 100 slots. It worked out well.”
The clinics will only take walk-in patients who are eligible to get vaccinated right now, and they will need to show proof that they live in the city.
“We know scheduling an appointment is a barrier for people, so we have to gradually switch to walk-ins,” added Farley. “We’ll try this today and see how it goes.”
Walk-ins will be taken at the four community clinics along with the ones that open in other parts of the city later this week. This does not apply to the FEMA site at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.