Olmsted County to use RCTC Field House as a mass vaccination site

As Covid-19 case numbers in our area fall to the lowest levels since mid-October, the major players in Olmsted County’s vaccination efforts announced Thursday they will join forces to host the city’s first mass vaccination clinics, inviting several thousand of the last remaining Phase 1A-eligible workers to start their two-dose process this week.

Olmsted County Public Health Director Graham Briggs said the makeshift clinic will be set up Friday and Saturday inside the Rochester Community and Technical College Field House. Staff from Mayo Clinic and Olmsted Medical Center will join Public Health employees in administering the vaccines — roughly 2,200 in all.

The effort is targeted toward staff and residents inside adult foster care settings, group homes, and childcare facilities, along with medical students doing clinical rotations — people who don’t work directly for a medical system, but still received a health worker designation. Briggs said those workers represent the last people left in the third priority group of Phase 1A, which has been the target group since mid-January.

“This is a big part of our vaccine efforts right now,” said Briggs. “This is going to allow us to get very close to closing out that 1A group, ensuring that all health care workers in Olmsted County have been offered vaccines.”

The clinic is entirely invite-only and will not be open to in-person registration.

Thursday’s announcement comes as other cities across the country begin to utilize mass-capacity venues, like sports arenas and music venues, as large-scale vaccination clinics. Notably, St. Paul’s Roy Wilkins Auditorium and Xcel Energy Center were used last week to vaccinate around 15,000 metro-area educators. 

While this week’s clinic could lead to efforts to “offer future vaccinations more broadly,” Briggs said there was no guarantee the clinic would return in the near-term — citing uncertainties in vaccine supply through mid-February. This week’s clinic will vaccinate a “big chunk” of remaining 1A3 workers, though, putting Olmsted County on a fast track to Phase 1B.

“I can’t say exactly when we’re going to finish up 1A [vaccination], but we’re very close,” said Briggs.

Officials from Mayo Clinic and Olmsted Medical Center also announced plans Thursday to expand their own vaccine offerings in the near future, as they look towards the beginning of Phase 1B — vaccinating non-health care “frontline essential workers” and senior citizens 75 and older.

Dr. Abinash Virk, infectious disease expert at Mayo, said the Clinic will start vaccinating patients 75 years of age and older next week at all Minnesota locations, including Rochester — a slightly larger group than the 80-plus category targeted roughly two weeks ago. “Most” of those 80-plus patients in Rochester — roughly 6,000 people — have been received their first doses, she added, although an exact number wasn’t made available.

At OMC, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Randy Hemann said his team was still vaccinating 80-and-older patients; roughly 300 were vaccinated last week, with an estimated 900 people receiving vaccination through this week. If those 80-plus patients live with someone over 65, however, both people would be allowed to receive their doses at the same time.

Dr. Virk said the Clinic initially targeted the 80-plus crowd for distribution purposes, saying that number would be more “manageable” for a limited vaccine supply. Dr. Hemann, then, said OMC followed Mayo’s lead, not wanting to further confuse the public after hearing three different age requirements for certain vaccine programs.

“We’ve been trying, in this whole area, to maintain a community consistency,” said Dr. Hemann. “That’s partly why you’ll see different numbers in different areas around the state.”

As of Tuesday, roughly one in five Olmsted County residents have received at least one dose of vaccine. Briggs said the positive effects of inoculation are now beginning to show themselves in the data, with the latest weekly report bringing the best outlook on the local Covid situation since the fall.

Public Health reported 274 new cases of the virus last week, marking the first time since Halloween that less than 300 cases were found in one week in Olmsted County. 

Percent-positive rates — one key factor in determining vaccine effectiveness, according to Briggs — have also begun to decline; the number now sits at eight percent after hovering around 10 percent for the better part of the post-November surge.

Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.

Cover photo courtesy Mayo Clinic News Network