Wake County to open mass COVID-19 drive-thru vaccine site at PNC Arena parking lot
PNC Arena will be the site of a mass COVID-19 vaccination site next week, Wake County Public Health announced in a statement late Friday afternoon.
Vaccinations will be available at the arena by appointment only, with people chosen from the county’s wait list. Invitations will be sent out Friday evening, according to the Wake County release. Appointments must be confirmed for the vaccine to be reserved.
The PNC Arena effort will lead to about 2,100 vaccinations, according to the Wake County release. It will take place on Thursday, Feb. 11, and Saturday, Feb. 13. Wake County said it plans to continue operating the PNC Arena vaccination site as supply and partnerships allow.
Most of the vaccinations will take place in the arena’s 8,000-space parking lot, with recipients driving through. People with appointments can also walk up to receive the vaccine.
If someone has an appointment and is taking GoRaleigh, they can take the Edwards Mill Bus 26 to Edwards Mill Road at Trinity Road Northbound or take the Blue Ridge Bus 27 to Blue Ridge Road and Westchase Boulevard Southbound. A shuttle will run continuously between these stops and the vaccination site, the county said.
In addition to Wake County Public Health, the PNC Arena vaccination site will be staffed by UNC REX Healthcare and the Capital Regional Advisory Committee.
“Thanks in part to the incredible coordination that is already underway among our community partners, we stand ready to take on these additional doses and deliver them safely and efficiently. This means more vaccinations and more lives saved,” Matt Calabria, chairman of the Wake County Board of Commissioners, said in a prepared statement.
Wake County has 94,000 people on its COVID-19 vaccine wait list, according to Friday’s release. If more vaccine becomes available, the PNC Arena site has the space to add additional drive-thru lanes.
In a prepared statement, Don Waddell, the president of the Carolina Hurricanes and PNC Arena, said, “PNC Arena has ample space to serve as a mass-vaccination venue, and we want to do everything we can to help Wake County in its fight against COVID-19.”
During a hearing of the N.C. House Health Standing Committee on Thursday, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen said about 30,000 of the roughly 150,000 vaccine doses the state receives each week will be allocated in a discretionary manner.
Those will be based, Cohen said, on events aimed at getting vaccine into the arms of historically marginalized populations and on “adjusting back” the rate of doses received among the state’s counties.
Cohen cited Wake County, specifically, as a place that had one of the state’s highest rate of people per doses after officials rushed a few weeks ago to get every dose off of the shelves.
Through this week, providers in Wake County have received one first dose of vaccine for every 17.26 residents, the ninth-highest number in North Carolina, according to data provided by DHHS. That’s well above the statewide average of a dose per 11.22 residents.
By comparison, providers in Orange County have one dose for every 5.99 residents, and Durham County has one per every 5.84 residents.
“We know in the process of trying to get that backlog into arms, we did have some inequity across counties,” Cohen said Thursday.
Wake County Public Health will receive a total of 6,650 doses next week. That includes the 2,150 doses for PNC Arena, as well as 3,500 doses for the two already operational health department vaccine sites at the Wake County Public Health Center and the Wake County Commons Building.
The county will deliver an additional 800 vaccines to historically maiginalized communities, according to Wake County, while 200 more will go to long-term care facilities.
Cohen also said that when deciding which events to send the additional vaccines to, state officials would consider whether organizations were partnering to host it.
The PNC Arena partnership includes Wake County, PNC Arena, WakeMed, UNC REX and Duke Raleigh.
“Partnership’s really important here,” Cohen said Thursday, “because, again, wanting to make sure we are not the ones choosing winners and losers in a community, but the community coming to us and saying: This is our partnership together.”
This story was originally published February 5, 2021 at 5:41 PM.