MS Coast hospital opens vaccine-only clinics. But so far most takers are from Louisiana.
Memorial Hospital at Gulfport opened a first-of-its-kind, walk-in clinic devoted to COVID-19 vaccinations Aug. 27, but later that week, the sign out front was stolen.
“Within the first two days the clinic was open, our big COVID vaccine sign was stolen,” said Matt Walker, Memorial’s vice president of clinic operations. “But we’ll replace it.”
The Biloxi site — the first of three Memorial is opening in South Mississippi to encourage vaccination accessibility in a region where numbers are stubbornly low — is located at 189 C Wal Mart Lane.
On Wednesday, two more vaccine-dedicated clinics opened — one at 179 Drinkwater Road in Bay St. Louis and the other at 6510 Hwy 90, Gautier. All sites are open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. five days a week.
The petty crime of a stolen sign matches sometimes irreverent local attitudes on coronavirus vaccination. So far, the easy-access clinic meant to raise South Mississippi vaccination numbers has proven more useful for Louisianan visitors, evacuating from Hurricane Ida.
Of the less than 100 shots administered in the clinic since it opened 10 days ago — a low number due to system closures from the Category 4 storm and a holiday weekend, according to a Memorial spokesperson — a fair number were given to out-of-state residents.
“They’re getting their shot before they go back home,” said Susan Wozniek, a registered nurse at the clinic. “They do have more mandates over there — you can hardly do a thing without a vaccine over there. And it’s more accessible over here.”
On Tuesday morning, when the Sun Herald visited the clinic, the only two patients waiting for their shots were from Louisiana.
“They go to Walmart and they see us across the street and they get a shot,” Wozniek said. “Last Friday, before we closed, we saw two families of five.”
Memorial, one of the Coast’s largest health care systems, transformed these three walk-in clinics formerly serving the community’s wide-ranging health needs into sites with one purpose: to administer Pfizer, Moderna and some Johnson & Johnson shots by appointment or drop-in.
The clinics are meant to make getting vaccinated convenient on the Coast, where 31% of residents in Hancock, Jackson and Harrison counties have both doses of their shot, on average. The state of Mississippi averages 39% fully vaccinated, well below the U.S. average of 52%.
Mississippi State Department of Health records show that 99% of COVID cases are in Mississippians not fully vaccinated, who also accounted for 86% of hospitalizations and deaths, from Aug. 10-Sept. 6.
“There’s a lot of fear around the vaccines, but the vaccines are doing what they’re meant to do, which is prevent death. And we’re seeing that day in and day out.
“We’ve been seeing an uptick in deaths at Memorial throughout August and even September, but all among the unvaccinated,” Walker said.
They’ll be open for “at least a month,” according to Walker, who oversees all Memorial clinics and pop-up vaccination events, and then need will be evaluated based on community response.
Community vaccination events and shot administration at other walk-in clinics will still be offered by the health system, including two upcoming events:
- Keesler Federal Credit Union in Gulfport from 1-3 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 11
- Diamondhead Activity Center from 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 15 and Thursday, Oct. 7.
Walker said the most effective vaccine events have been when Memorial has made it as easy as possible.
“It does appear to be the way the Gulf Coast wants to get vaccinated. They kind of want it their way, they want you to come to their establishment,” Walker said. “Whatever it takes to get this done.. .Here, we don’t require an appointment, you can show up and pick whichever [shot] you want.
“This is our Burger King option. You can have it your way here on Wal Mart Lane.”
Prepare for the next COVID wave
As recently as last week, Mississippi was pegged as a national and global COVID hotspot as one of the first states to see a surge from the delta variant. But numbers have started to plateau, a trend State Medical Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs called a “light at the end of the tunnel.”
Despite lower reporting over Labor Day weekend, according to MSDH, the state saw its lowest COVID numbers since before the delta variant surges on Monday, reporting only 704 new cases.
The downturn comes as Mississippi has seen increases in its vaccination rates while COVID numbers surged. But on the Coast, vaccination rates haven’t trended upward as much as the rest of the state.
In June, Memorial vaccinated about 600 people, Walker said. In July, there were about 1,500 vaccinations and over 4,000 in August. The system is “hopeful” September numbers will exceed August numbers.
Memorial is currently vaccinating about 100 to 220 patients a day, which is “not really moving the needle,” according to Walker, who said the slight uptick could be attributed to Pfizer’s recent FDA approval and expanded age eligibility requirements.
The Pfizer vaccine has not been requested any more than Moderna or Johnson & Johnson shots, however.
Hancock County is the least vaccinated county on the Coast, where just 27% of residents have both shots. Of the three southern Mississippi counties, Harrison is the most fully vaccinated, with 34%. Jackson County trails at 33%.
“We’re the second most populated area of the state of Mississippi, and we need tens of thousands of people to be vaccinated in order to really have good coverage against these variant strains,” he said.
The potential for additional, lambda or a mu variant waves of COVID seems imminent if vaccination rates remain low, Walker said.
“This appears to be kind of the new, the new health care where we’re almost like an accordion, where we have normal operations for a few months followed by this wave of a new variant. If the vaccine proves to be a very good way to combat that and mitigate deaths in your community. We absolutely need people to take advantage,” he said.
“So this is a very pivotal week… if you’re in the break time, locations like this can really bend the ear of the general public to get folks as vaccinated as we could possibly get, and maybe come Christmas time it won’t be as bad as this wave has been.”
This article is supported by the Journalism and Public Information Fund, a fund of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
This story was originally published September 10, 2021 at 5:50 AM.
