DENVER (KDVR) — UCHealth operated a dry run on Sunday to prepare for a mass drive-thru vaccination at Coors Field.
About 1,000 people 70 years old and up received a COVID-19 vaccination through an appointment-only system. The event was practice for the larger offer planned on Jan. 30 and 31.
“Our goal is to be able to design flow and to test how many people we might be able to vaccinate and to discover how efficiently this might be done,” UCHealth Vice President of Communications Dan Weaver said.
One hundred and seventy-five people assisted cars through the process, a majority of them volunteers. Colorado Rockies CEO Dick Monfort was out flagging cars along the lines.
“Now it’s real and next week it’s really going to be real,” Monfort said.
The community of age 70+ Coloradans has voiced difficulties getting appointments or contact information for locations administering the vaccine.
“It was easy, it was very easy,” Gloria Vargas, a vaccine recipient’s daughter said. “We got an email through the UCHealth website, I was able to sign up in five minutes.”
Vargas’s father doesn’t speak English but translation tablets at the event’s drive-up tents made it a smooth process for him and his family.
“It feels great, I feel lucky,” Vargas said. “My friend just lost her father last week, I just feel very lucky.”
People receiving the vaccines at the Coors Field site will be chosen randomly from those who have registered with UCHealth. The mass vaccination next week is expected to accommodate over 10,000 patients.
“It is better than what we had planned for,” UCHealth Dr. Richard Zane said. “We’re planning on doing 10,000 over next Saturday and Sunday and with more vaccines we are certain we’d be able to do 15,000, maybe 20.”