Nearly 500 receive first doses of COVID vaccine at Albany drive-thru clinic

ALBANY — A Saturday COVID-19 vaccination clinic that included $100 gift cards to entice reluctant or procrastinating Dougherty County residents to roll up their sleeves brought out 538 people to get shots.

Of those, 493 received a first dose of the Pfizer vaccine and 45 got second shots of the two-dose product, Sam Allen, director of Dougherty County Emergency Medical Services, said Monday.

“There was a great turnout,” Allen said. “We had a lot of walk-ups. I got there at 6 o’clock (a.m.) and they were already lining up on foot and in cars.”

Numbers were not available on Monday for how many of those vaccinated were eligible to receive a $100 Visa gift card. The incentive was only available to Dougherty County residents 18 and older, although vaccines were available to children 12 and older and to residents of other counties.

EMS personnel were on hand to assist or transport anyone who had a reaction to the vaccine, but there were no issues on that score although there was one person who had a heat-related issue, Allen said.

The Dougherty County Commission approved last week spending up to $338,000 in federal COVID relief funds on the $100 incentives.

The county, working with Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, Albany Area Primary Health Care and Georgia Department of Public Health, will hold another clinic in about a month. Gift cards also will be awarded during that event.

“It was great,” Dougherty Commissioner Russell Gray said of the clinic. “I’m really impressed with the turnout. It could have gone either way. I don’t think it was a flop by any stretch of the imagination.”

Vaccinated individuals help protect their communities and also protect themselves from negative outcomes that include severe illness, death and expensive hospital costs, the commissioner said.

“What this does is also protect the valuable resources of our hospital,” Gray said. “It helps prevent our hospital system from becoming overburdened. It also allows them to reduce unnecessary hospitalizations and ICU admissions that could be used for other severe health conditions (like) heart attacks and strokes and for procedures like hip replacements that people also need and are on hold right now.”

Although Gray said he doesn’t want to spread the process out over months, as the idea is to get people vaccinated as quickly as possible, the commission may need to consider additional clinics or tracking those who get a first shot and awarding them gift cards when they get a second dose.

“There are a lot of people who are on the fence,” Gray said. “If using this federal money to put a carrot out there to people who are on the fence to get vaccinated, that’s great. Like I said at our meeting the other day, if we spend all that $338,000, that would be a wildly successful problem to have to have for how we’re going to pay for the rest.”

While he said he supports vaccinations, Commissioner Victor Edwards said paying people to get the shot is a form of coercion.

The same holds true for him for an initiative approved by the commission in August to pay $300 incentives to employees who get vaccinated.

“I think it was a great thing,” Edwards said of the Saturday clinic. He, along with Commissioner Clinton Johnson, voted in opposition to the $338,000 outlay. “I’m not in opposition to the vaccine. I am in opposition to paying people to get something that’s free.”

Edwards said he also would like to see the commission develop a plan to spend the money, as opposed to having individual projects such as the clinics brought to the board for approval on short notice. The District 5 commissioner said he received about eight calls about the incentive program over the past week, with nearly all opposed to paying individuals to get vaccinated.

The county received $8 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds this year and is expected to receive an equal amount in 2022.

“We as commissioners have not sat down with staff to say these are the things we would like to get done,” Edwards said.

Some of the issues he would like to address include helping the Albany Rescue Mission and addressing homelessness, housing and work programs for young residents.

“Those are some of the kinds of projects we’re looking to see with the ARP money,” he said.

For Commissioner Anthony Jones, the money was well-spent, especially if those 493 who got first shots show up in about four weeks for a second dose.

“We continue to save lives and keep people out of the hospital,” Jones said. “You can’t put a dollar amount on the lives saved.”

Special PhotoSpecial Photo: Dougherty County

Special Photo: Dougherty County