Governor Walz Tours COVID-19 Vaccination Site in Brooklyn Center
The luck of the vaccine lottery continues for many seniors, as they learn whether they will be randomly selected to receive shots at community sites like the one in Brooklyn Center.
That Brooklyn Center site, located at the Earle Brown Heritage Center, is a strategic one for the Twin Cities, since there’s no community clinic yet in Minneapolis.
“Having the vaccines here in Brooklyn Center is such an important piece for our community, as well as for the whole north Hennepin area,” said Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott. “We are an easy access point to the broader north, and so we think this was a good choice for all of our collective communities.”
Mayor Elliott joined Governor Walz and state health leaders Thursday afternoon as they toured the vaccine site.
Between Thursday and Saturday, they’re expecting about 2,400 people age 65 and older to come through.
A nurse in Brooklyn Center prepares to administer a COVID-19 shot to a senior.
Every senior at the Brooklyn Center COVID-19 vaccine clinic was one of the lucky winners of a lottery system set up by the state.
As of Thursday afternoon, more than 400,000 doses of vaccine have been administered so far in Minnesota. Of those doses, about 92,000 went to seniors.
Some feeling left out
However, some people with underlying health conditions who aren’t quite 65 years of age feel like they’ve been left out.
When asked about this population and when they might be eligible for the vaccine, state health officials asked for people’s patience.
“We’re trying to work through the data now to kind of identify which conditions are the most significant from a COVID co-morbidity perspective, and working with our clinical community to figure out, okay how do we kind of factor that in to give the clinicians the flexibility to do that,” said Commissioner Jan Malcolm of the Minnesota Department of Health.
“All of these questions are really good. They’re the ones that keep me up at night,” said Governor Tim Walz. “I just spoke to a woman that has a kidney removed and is on that list, how do we make sure we’re hitting those modalities that are really important that we get to as quickly as possible?”
Meanwhile, officials running the Brooklyn Center vaccine clinic said that the week of Feb. 1, there will be no vaccines on site. They said they’re going to take a week off, and then they’ll reopen the week of Feb. 8. However, the only people allowed back that week will be those who got the first dose of the vaccination the week of Jan. 18.
