Mercer County continues to hold twice weekly vaccine clinic

CELINA — Mercer County’s Health Department is continuing it’s twice weekly COVID-19 vaccine clinics. The department is set up at the fairgrounds where they bring 7 cars at a time into a single building and vaccinate the people in the car.

Using this process they get through about 60 people an hour typically but can vaccinate more than 300 people in a single day.

For those that are able to get their shot, they share their excitement.

“I can get my life back,” Pam Dwenger said. “I’ve been very fortunate to have my daughter do a lot of my grocery shopping and everything.”

So many across the Miami Valley have said how frustrating the difficult the process is to try and register for the vaccine.

“You have no idea what I went through to get this,” Dick Courtney said. “I called on the telephone every 15 seconds for one hour two weeks ago. Full. Never answered the phone. Oh, it’s hell, you just keep dialing and dialing and dialing. Finally got through.”

It’s because of that difficulty that it feels like a celebration for many when they finally get their first shot.

“I felt very fortunate, feel very blessed,” Dwenger said. “I really feel finally relieved now. 3 weeks from now I’ll feel a lot better as well. Just feel safer. A lot of people don’t wear their masks, they just don’t understand the need for that and the social distancing.”

As registration opens to a larger population Mercer County has made an emphasis to create special registration hours for people who are 75 years of age and older.

“Registration opened up an hour earlier to get that population that we’re really targeting in so they have a chance to get the shot and especially since a lot of them aren’t computer savvy it’s easier for them to talk to us through over the phone,” Kristy Fryman, Public Information Officer for Mercer County Health Department.

Fryman said on average they need 40 to 45 people to pull off the clinics that typically run from about 9 to 5pm. She said the staff at MCHD is less than 20, making volunteers extremely important to the county’s vaccination efforts.

“To get 45 people to run the clinic we really rely on our volunteers and our volunteers have been huge,” Fryman said. “For instance, today we have 25 of them who came out to help and not one of them complained about the cold they’re just happy to help the community out and we’re very thankful for our volunteers.”

The process looks a little different from how some other county’s are operating their clinics but as Dwenger was going through the process she spoke very highly of the volunteers and staff that made it run smoothly.

“So functionable but when you deal with Mercer Health that’s just how they operate,” Dwenger said. “They’re very good, they take care of the clients and the people are so polite and very informed on where you need to go.”

Those getting the vaccine Wednesday shared their excitement and Fryman said it’s not unusual to see so many people that are excited that their day has come.

“The excitement has been through the roof honestly,” Fryman said. “I’m usually at our greeter’s station and you hear heartwarming stories of people who just come in and they’re overjoyed that they finally get the shot. A lot of them especially the elderly haven’t been out in the public for quite some time so a lot of times they’ll come in and talk to us for a little bit because they’re having that conversation. We’ve had a lot of tears come through a lot of people that are just thankful got a lot of people bring us gifts. For instance I got a cross one day from a guy who was so thrilled to get the shot and it’s been cold but it’s been heartwarming because we’re actually serving the public and we’re just grateful to be out there.”

The twice weekly clinics continue with the next one set for Friday at Mercer County’s Fairgrounds.

Cox Media Group