Mass vaccination drive-thru site set to open in Delaware County

A mass vaccination drive-thru site is set to open on Saturday at Delaware County Community College.

DELAWARE COUNTY, Pa. - A mass vaccination drive-thru site is set to open on Saturday at Delaware County Community College.

"They’ll pull their car in. They’ll get their last check of the paperwork and they’ll get their shot. It’s that simple and that efficient. We hope to do more than 250 an hour," Timothy Boyce, director of emergency services, said.

Their goal is 2,200 doses over the weekend of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

The opening of the site is a welcome change from the undersupply of doses county officials bitterly complained about weeks earlier putting them at odds with the governor who planned his own mass vaccination sites in the region.

The state shipped 21,000 J&J doses directly to Delco Monday.

"This really is an answer to those calls. Give the vaccine directly to us. We are equipped. We’ve been working on these plans," councilmember Kevin Madden said.

Vaccinating in the 1A and 1B phases, residents can sign up on the county’s COVID-19 website. The county says 187,000 residents have had at least one shot.

"I’m hoping in the next seven weeks we’ll be able to accomplish at least half of the adult population in the county," COVID coordinator Rosemarie Halt said.

Delco wants to vaccinate more residents of color and outrun the spike in new COVID cases.

"We are in a race against the clock. We are in a race against the uptick in cases, the variants. We don’t know where that’s going," councilmember Elaine Paul Schaefer said.

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