DENVER (KDVR) — It’s expected to be another busy weekend at Coors Field as thousands of older Coloradans prepare to be vaccinated at UCHealth’s second mass vaccination drive-thru event.
This Saturday and Sunday, UCHealth plans to administer 10,000 vaccines: 5,000 on Saturday and 5,000 on Sunday.
“The faster and broader we vaccinate, the faster we get back to normal,” said Dr. Richard Zane, chief innovation officer for UCHealth.
Patients still need to register and have an appointment to attend the event. If you are a UCHealth patient over 70, you’ll be put into the pool to be randomly selected. If you’re not an existing patient, you can register on its website or call its COVID-19 hotline.
As of Wednesday, UCHealth has already booked all 5,000 patients for Saturday and 2,500 patients for Sunday.
“We believe we could probably vaccinate 8,000 people in one day and 16,000 in a weekend, but the supply of the vaccine is the single biggest challenge,” said Zane.
When a patient receives an invitation to be vaccinated, they will have 48 hours to accept and choose a clinic to visit. If a patient does not respond to the invitation after two days, it will expire, and the invite will be given to someone else.
At Coors Field, the vaccination site will extend over a mile and half with 10 lanes for patients to drive through. Patients will be asked to stay in their vehicles for the entire visit, which shouldn’t take longer than 30 minutes. UCHealth said Wednesday it has more than enough medical staff to ensure wait times are minimal.
UCHealth hopes this mass vaccination site will become one of many, as more vaccines become available. Zane tells FOX31 at this rate, he firmly believes every Coloradan can be vaccinated by summer if they choose to be.
To prevent traffic back-ups this weekend at Coors Field, officials ask only people with an appointment to come to the vaccination site, as they will not have any extra vaccine doses to administer.
Currently, UCHealth is picking people at random to be vaccinated, drawing from a pool of over 300,000 registered patients. To ensure equality, officials are using zip codes to keep its vaccine selections vast. Patients will be asked to provide their name and date of birth after they’ve been selected.