Federal COVID-19 mass vaccination site to open at Columbia Place Mall next week
A federally-supported mass COVID-19 vaccination site will open next week at the Columbia Place Mall on Two Notch Road, the White House announced Monday.
The site, part of a joint federal pilot program to expand vaccination rates in communities with a high risk of COVID-19 exposure and infection, should be up and running by April 14 and will be capable of administering 7,000 doses a week for eight weeks.
The state Emergency Management Division, state Department of Health and Environmental Control and Richland County Emergency Services will help run the site with support from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, DHEC said in a statement.
All South Carolina residents age 16 and older are eligible for a COVID-19 shot at the site, which is one of 12 community mass vaccination sites the Biden Administration announced last week it would stand up in cities across the country.
Information about the Columbia site’s hours and registration process were not immediately available, but some of the 25 existing federally-run vaccination sites offer weekend and evening hours and reserve slots for faith-based and community-based groups, White House officials said in a statement.
“We are committed to the equitable distribution of the vaccine and our top priority is to ensure everyone who wants a vaccine gets one,” said Gracia Szczech, regional administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “Opening the community vaccination center at Columbia Place Mall will help make that happen.”
South Carolina has administered more than 2.1 million vaccine doses to date, but ranks only 39th in the country in the percentage of residents vaccinated, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 33.5% of the state’s residents have gotten at least one shot and more than 19% of South Carolinians are fully vaccinated, state Department of Health and Environmental Control data show.
As of Monday, about 32.2% of Richland County residents 15 and older had received at least one vaccine dose, slightly below the state average, according to DHEC data.
The racial breakdown of COVID-19 vaccinations in Richland County mirrors South Carolina as a whole, with white residents getting jabs at roughly 1.5 times the rate of Black residents, data show.
Federal officials chose Richland County due to its designation as a “high-risk” community, based on the CDC’s social vulnerability index and a series of other factors. South Carolina’s health agency also identified Richland County as having high vaccine demand.
The county has a larger proportion of non-white residents (57.7%), residents living in poverty (16.2%) and households without access to a vehicle (6.8%) than South Carolina as a whole, according to U.S. Census data.
The mall site was chosen because it has adequate parking and access to public transportation, officials said.
During the pilot period, the federal government will ship a limited number of vaccine doses directly to the Columbia Place Mall site through FEMA. The federal doses set to flow into Richland County will be in addition to the weekly allotment South Carolina receives from the federal government, the agency said.
South Carolina is expected to get more than 192,000 first doses of vaccine this week as part of its allotment, CDC data shows.
As of Monday, the state had reported nearly 467,750 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 8,111 virus deaths since March 2020.
Richland County has reported lower coronavirus cases and death rates than most South Carolina counties over the course of the pandemic, according to DHEC data.
This story was originally published April 5, 2021 at 12:00 PM.