This week, Stacey Stover of Middletown finished his COVID-19 vaccination in a space that was familiar and convenient, a clinic that popped up in front of his brother’s house in the Yorktowne Manufactured Home Community in Sharonville.
“I had been debating getting one,” said Stover, “but then my brother sent me a photo of the flyer that said it would be here. And I thought, I’ll just come down.”
In the fifth month of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, with the drug in plentiful supply, the scramble for an appointment is over. Now, public health officials talk about “hyper convenience” as the strategy for hitting the regional target of at least 80% of the eligible population vaccinated by July 4. Public health officials hope that percentage can create community protection against the new coronavirus by making it harder for the pathogen to infect anyone.
“We’re being responsive,” said Kate Schroder, who is coordinating, through the Health Collaborative, the region’s Get Out the Vax effort. “The goal, if we’re going to be successful, is to be what the community wants. We want to meet people where they are, particularly younger folks, who tend to be less engaged with the health care systems.”
“We’re going to where the people are,” said Julianne Nesbit, health commissioner of Clermont County. “We all started to see the slowdown at the mass vaccination sites. We recognize that people are busy, and we need to try to make it easy for them.”
On Friday, shoppers at Findlay Market will have a chance to walk up for vaccination. The 50 West Brewery is hosting a county vaccination unit Tuesday at its venue on Wooster Pike so customers can get “a burger, a beer and a shot,” Hamilton County Commissioner Denise Driehaus said Wednesday.
Learn where to get a vaccination with The Enquirer
On May 22, Little Miami Brewing Co. in Milford will host a vaccination clinic from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nesbit said more evening events will be scheduled. “Through the pandemic, we’ve been constantly pivoting,” she said.
More venues and dates are available on the Test and Protect Cincy website for the Get Out the Vax campaign. The Enquirer also runs an updated list of clinics.
Appointments are still valuable, Nesbit said, so providers can gauge how much vaccine to bring, but walk-ins are welcome. Any inconvenience now, even a smartphone app, could discourage someone from vaccination, she said.
The Yorktowne community once was home to retirees and the elderly, but now families fill many of the houses. Hamilton County Public Health dispatched the van three weeks before to offer the first shot of the vaccine series and returned Monday to give the second shots. Agency spokesman Mike Samet said 80 doses were administered. Spanish speakers helped with registration through vaccination.
The convenience of the Yorktowne clinic was important to Stover, a landscaper at Hamilton’s Greenwood Cemetery. But he had another priority in getting his second shot: “I haven’t seen my parents in a year.”
Danny Stover, his brother, also got vaccinated. “We knew we had to do it, so we could see our parents again, and when it comes right to you, this is the best way.”
For Lilia Ocampo, 18, another Yorktowne resident, “It’s great because it’s so convenient. I start work at 4 o’clock, and I can get my shot, and wait the 15 minutes, and go right into my work.”
Having the vaccine clinic around the corner from their Yorktowne house Monday was a relief for nail technicians Kay Lee and his wife Thuy Vu, who came for their second shot and brought along their daughter Sophia, 3, and Liam, 7, months. With them, too, were Lee’s brother Nguyen and his wife Zoey Hoang, also nail technicians.
The whole family moved to Cincinnati from Texas in March 2020, “and the day after we moved, everything shut down,” Vu said. They all have found work, and since Monday is their day off, they were glad to get the vaccine a short walk from their front door.
The city of Sharonville scheduled a clinic May 28 at Shadow Hill Apartments to deliver second doses. But mayor's assistant Anna Ehlerding said the county could bring additional vaccine for "a ripple effect that we see when we gain trust in the community, and people see their neighbors getting it."
A horn sounded from across the Yorktowne green. Stacey Stover waved good-bye to his brother from the window of his truck and called out, “See you this weekend!”
Staff writer Terry DeMio contributed.
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