Beaufort hospital will use high school stadium for 1,000 drive-thru COVID-19 vaccinations

Beaufort Memorial Hospital began to vaccinate roughly 1,000 people against COVID-19 at a new site early Thursday: the Beaufort High School Stadium’s parking lot.

The drive-thru event will not accept walk-ups.

Courtney McDermott, a spokesperson for the hospital, said the Medical University of South Carolina contacted BMH on Tuesday and offered to provide the local medical center with 1,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine.

BMH last Friday canceled more than 6,000 vaccination appointments through March 30 after the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control told the S.C. Hospital Association that medical centers would get only 20-25% of the Pfizer doses they had requested for this week, even though state leaders had expanded Phase 1a eligibility to include thousands of residents 70 or older.

The all-day event at Beaufort High School was made available to those who had an appointment canceled from Monday to Jan. 25.

The hospital contacted people and then registered them for the drive-thru clinic, McDermott said.

BMH on Wednesday planned for the event with state and local officials, including the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, Beaufort County Emergency Management Services and Lady’s Island Fire Department.

The Sheriff’s Office will staff checkpoints Thursday, and deputies have a list of those registered to attend, McDermott said.

A similar clinic will be repeated three weeks later so people can get the second shot as part of Pfizer’s two-dose regimen.

“We believe this event will jump start the delayed vaccination process and allow us to reschedule other canceled appointments more quickly than expected,” Russell Baxley, CEO of Beaufort Memorial Hospital, wrote in a statement.

Frank Rodriguez, superintendent of the Beaufort County School District, at Tuesday night’s school board meeting said he was discussing the matter with state Sen. Tom Davis, Baxley and Hilton Head Regional Healthcare CEO Jeremy Clark.

“At Beaufort High School, the stadium is separate from the high school,” he said. “It’s a good facility where it doesn’t really interfere with our day to day operation and we can contribute to this effort around vaccines for the community.”

Rodriguez also addressed teacher vaccinations at Tuesday’s meeting. While school nurses and medical workers are in Phase 1a, other school professionals are in Phase 1b.

Rodriguez said local hospitals have been sent contact information — names, email addresses and vaccine site locations — for “every one of our employees,” which will ease the preregistration process when Phase 1b opens.

This story was originally published January 21, 2021 at 10:28 AM.