Prince Rupert pop-up clinic vaccinates over 40 people

A pop-up COVID-19 vaccine clinic, set up in the Coast Mountain College parking lot, assisted more than 40 people in Prince Rupert to become immunized, on Sept 8.

Alex Martin, a nurse at the outdoor clinic, said many people who wouldn’t go to a health unit to get vaccinated choose to receive their vaccine spontaneously when they see their pop-up site. In fact, she said it had been happening all day.

“We’ve had quite a few people with no fixed address, it seems, who were getting first doses done,” she said. “We usually get really high rate of first doses.”

No appointments were necessary to receive a vaccine nor was any form of government identification. Staff work through language barriers and other obstacles to find ways to get everyone vaccinated, she said.

“We really try not to turn anyone away,” Martin said. “We have ways that we can look people up as long as we have their first name, last name [and] date of birth.”

“By the fact that we’ve done 40 doses, it seems there’s been a need … it seems we filled a little hole,” Martin said.

As of Sept. 6, the BC Centre of Disease Control reported that 83 per cent of Prince Rupert residents age 12 and over have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

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