PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — As more and more COVID-19 vaccine rolls out across the country, more and more places that were not initially intended to be for medical use are now being used as vaccination sites. Some people are feeling a strange connection to the places where they're being inoculated against this one-in-a-lifetime pandemic.
A pharmacy in a grocery store might not seem unusual, but for Sara Smith of West Chester, stepping into a Wegmans to get her COVID-19 vaccination shot felt pretty strange.
"I feel like all of this is just so surreal," she said, adding she had not been in a grocery store for some time. "I still curbside pickup everything."
When Paul Brown of Port Richmond made his COVID-19 vaccination appointment, he received an address — and then discovered that the Theater of the Living Arts, where he was used to seeing his favorite bands play, had become a makeshift clinic.
"I mean, I remember going to the TLA years," he said. "And here I am, an older person concerned about my health, and the TLA's addressing that need for me."
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He says the venue was not like he remembered.
"First off, the venue's fully lit. Normally when the lights are on, it's time to go. Instead, this was go time!" he said.
"So, instead of, like, hitting a left and going to the bar, now you're hitting a right and getting your vaccination against the stage," he said. "That would've been the mosh area!"
Laura Walters of Cherry Hill got vaccinated in an empty Lord & Taylor store at the Moorestown Mall.
"It's bizarre. I mean, I was definitely a mall girl in the '80s and '90s. I went with my friends. I was used to these spaces, and these spaces that you're used to really seeing for commercial purposes. The vaccine is now the commerce," she said.
"And it's unreal. I mean, there's price checkers and price stickers still on the wall."
She says it's a little hard to accept that this is our world right now.
"Very kind of post-apocalyptic, sort of 'Handmaid's Tale,'" she said, "where you're going into these places that really shouldn't be for medical use, but yet, they're being transformed into these sites."
Other vaccination sites include church pulpits, college dorm rooms, even parking lots.