Long Island Colleges Hosting Mass Vaccination Sites
The CDC has recommended to continue the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The J&J vaccine, also known as the Janssen vaccine was discontinued for about two weeks after blood clots as a side effect were reported. The pause affected SUNY schools, including Suffolk County Community College and Stonybrook University. Students at the school had direct access to get vaccinated through Gov. Cuomo’s effort to allocate the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to SUNY schools.
“We did get about a thousand doses or so,” Lawrence Zacarese assistant vice president of campus safety for Stonybrook University said. “When the pause came, we paused. And when it was unpaused and we were able to do it again, we continued to offer those up.”
Cuomo’s directive for SUNY schools to administer the Johnson & Johnson vaccine encompasses 34 campuses. Since the Johnson and Johnson vaccine only requires one dose, students leaving campus for the summer don’t have to worry about returning for a second dose.
Before students were eligible and receiving vaccines on their campus, some SUNY schools were already in the process of distributing vaccinations to the general public.
On March 15, Governor Cuomo announced the addition of three mass vaccination sites to open on Long Island. Suffolk County Community College’s Brentwood campus, and Stony Brook’s Southampton campus are two of them, the last one being SUNY Old Westbury.
“The Southampton campus was sort of a logical choice for east-end access.” Zacarese said. “And to try to push further east and extend the availability for folks on the east-end.”
Since the directive to give students the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is separate from the state run vaccination sites, these schools did not have to cancel their appointments when the Janssen vaccine was paused.
Zacarese said Stonybrook’s vaccination sites administer Pfizer and Moderna. According to a New York State government website, Suffolk Community College Brentwood and Old Westbury are offering the Pfizer vaccine to the general public.
“They are at this point vaccinating about 800 people a day 7 days a week,” Michael Kinane, chief communications officer at SUNY Old Westbury said. The state run vaccination site is located at the school’s Clark Center which normally serves as a gymnasium. Converting the Clark Center from a place to watch a basketball game to a place to get vaccinated was not difficult.
At the start of the pandemic, the Clark Center was made an alternate care facility, outfitted with around a hundred beds. The facility ultimately went unused, but the Clark Center still had a purpose for the state. “When the state started to see the availability of more doses and started to look for other places where that was needed, we kinda just made sense,” Kinane said. “The groundwork had already been done to turn us into a facility that could handle that kind of population.”
Stonybrook University made similar changes to accommodate people for the vaccination site on their Southampton campus. “The good news is that we had the gym, where the site is located, that’s on the campus but not directly connected to it.” Zacarese said. “The bad news for us is that it was a building that’s not necessarily utilized, so we did have to make some modifications and changes to get it to be able to have a throughput of a thousand people a day in.”
While SUNY Old Westbury is in the middle of their spring semester, the influx of people entering their campus has not caused any problems. Around ninety percent of their classes are online. “I wouldn’t even call it a disruption,” Kinane said. “I think if we were operating in normal times with our regular ins and outs of students, faculty and staff it might be more problematic.”
The same can be said of Suffolk Community College’s Brentwood campus who are also operating under abnormal conditions, although there have been some modifications. “Our campuses, prior to the launch of the vaccination PODS, had limited traffic and students due to the pandemic.” Biondo said. “We have had to adjust traffic flows, move some classes, and adjust schedules.”
Hosting a vaccination site can have its benefits for the school. “The college is reimbursed for out-of-pocket costs related to the vaccination PODS.” Biondo said. These include elements such as public safety and cleaning.
SUNY Old Westbury on the other hand has not received any funding by the state. “If some funding comes our way that will be great,” Kinane said. “We actually will need some help making sure we can get our facilities back in shape when this goes away, because it’s kind of a big imprint.”
After the announcement that Stonybrook’s Southampton campus would host a vaccination site, the school had to make preparations. “We work very closely with our town partners and our state partners to setup an appropriate traffic pattern and appropriate parking.” Zacarese said. “The ability to traverse on parking on one side of the campus and the actual site itself.”
Even if the schools have had to deal with increased traffic and adjust schedules for their students, the vaccination sites create no problems to the public.
People who have received their vaccine at these sites voiced their opinion over Twitter. Scanning through posts on the topic shows most people have had a positive experience getting vaccinated at these sites.
As of May 3rd, 525,300 Suffolk County residents have been fully vaccinated. Zacarese said “While it’s not a precise number, it’s actually pretty close, we the Stonybrook entity are responsible for 325 plus thousand of those doses.”
“We’re very proud of that,” Zacarese added. “It’s only accentuated by the fact that the process had been very well streamlined from start to finish. I think it’s a huge feather in the cap and it just shows Stonybrook once again stepping up as a regional partner for everybody in a time of crisis.”
Providing an effective way to give people the COVID vaccine is a public duty for schools in the SUNY system. “Part of the public service mission of the public institution is to step up when the public needs you to.” Kinane said.
Nearly 50% of people have received one dose of the vaccine to help end a year long pandemic. If anyone on Long Island were to schedule an appointment to be vaccinated, any one of these mass vaccination sites will provide a good option.
