Public transit meets public health: Tarrant County plans for COVID-19 vaccination bus
A COVID-19 vaccination bus will be dispatched to the county neighborhoods with the lowest vaccination rates through a partnership between Tarrant County Public Health and Trinity Metro.
The vaccination bus will be able to move throughout the county to provide on-site COVID-19 vaccination clinics.
Under the agreement, Trinity Metro will rent out a 60-foot bus to Tarrant County Public Health, which will be outfitted to allow for people to register and receive their vaccines on the bus as well as stay for the required observation period. County commissioners approved plans for the vaccination bus at a meeting Tuesday.
Public Health Director Vinny Taneja said the vaccination bus would target neighborhoods with low vaccination rates, neighborhoods that are underserved, and neighborhoods with poor access to transportation. The bus will be deployed in combination with health workers who will go door to door asking people if they have been vaccinated against COVID-19 and if they have any questions about the vaccine.
The combination of door knockers and the mobile vaccine clinic will allow people who are interested in getting vaccinated to get the shot immediately after talking to a health worker, if they want, Taneja said, because the bus will be parked nearby in the community.
“If people say, ‘well yes that’s a great idea,’ well, we’ve got a bus right around the corner. Why don’t we get you vaccinated?,” Taneja said. “That’s sort of the vision.”
Just 52% of county residents are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to state data. And only 10% of county residents have received a booster dose that experts say will be necessary to provide protection against the new Omicron variant of the virus. The Omicron variant has been detected in Tarrant County, and experts expect it to become the dominant strain of the virus in the coming weeks or months.
Mobile vaccination clinics have been used by private health providers for decades, including throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Providers with the Texas Health Resources health system have distributed more than 10,000 vaccines through their mobile vaccine clinic program, said Rosemary Galdiano, the director of Texas Health Resources’ mobile health program.
The approach allows vaccine clinics to come to neighborhoods without limited access to transportation or without the tools to support vaccine distribution. The vans often set up in grocery store parking lots, outside of churches, and in parks to provide accessible and on-site health care. Many of the patients the mobile health clinics serve don’t have health insurance, Galdiano said, and thus have limited access to medical care.
“I really commend the county for going this route,” Galdiano said. “It has been proven that mobile clinics are effective in delivering services directly into high need areas. It will go a long way to reducing a lot of barriers.”
Galdiano said trust has been essential in the success of the mobile vaccine clinics she offers.
“I think we need to continue to work within communities and identify those champions,” she said. Community leaders advocating for the vaccine “is so important to helping those that are still kind of hesitant to change their minds.”
More details about the program, including when it will start and what neighborhoods it will prioritize, are still forthcoming, Taneja said.
Abby Church contributed to this report.
This story was originally published December 15, 2021 at 8:45 AM.
