Q&A: Mobile COVID-19 vaccination events can overcome barriers to access

As of mid-March, FEMA had helped the CDC and local partners hold more than 500 mobile COVID-19 vaccination events in the U.S.

Mobile units can be deployed to homeless shelters or to serve people who are unable to make the trip to a vaccination site, or who do not live close to a permanent site.

“As people become eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, one obstacle they may face is finding a vaccination center close to home,” FEMA said. “Mobile and pop-up centers are sites that can be set up anywhere with the support of entities such as local public health clinics, health care providers, pharmacies, community and faith-based organizations, employers, private sector vaccinators and federal resources.”

Healio spoke with Larry King, a spokesman for Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who is working with the county department to implement mobile vaccination units. Currently, the units are administering the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine in an effort to avoid having to schedule second appointments, King said.

Healio: How are you identifying people to vaccinate with these units?

King: Our emergency services division has worked with our department of housing and community development to arrange for our vaccination contractor, AMI Expeditionary Healthcare, to bring a team in a van to three area homeless shelters: one in Lower Bucks County on Tuesday (plans to vaccinate 70 people), one in Upper Bucks county on Wednesday (50 people), and one in Central Bucks on Thursday (50 people). These doses will be administered inside the shelters. The van will simply bring the team to the sites.

We also have a list of more than 300 homebound people, identified by our area agency on aging and our health department, who will be visited at their homes by smaller strike teams of health department workers and volunteers.

Healio: Are you going house to house exclusively, or setting up in public places?

King: We are continuing to use our health department strike teams to visit housing authority properties serving mostly elderly and low-income residents. This has been a process ongoing for several weeks using two-dose vaccines, but it will be switching exclusively to Johnson & Johnson.

Healio: Are there unique storage considerations?

King: Our teams have access to the coolers that the Bucks County Department of Health possesses to help with maintaining the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, as necessary.