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Date: 8/25/2021
HOLYOKE – Holyoke Community College (HCC) is continuing its effort to promote health and safety within the community by offering students, faculty, staff and community members the opportunity to get vaccinated for free.
Media Relations Manager for HCC Chris Yurko said the college has been discussing hosting vaccine clinics on campus for quite some time. He went on to say they’d previously hosted some mobile vaccine clinics at the college in collaboration with Holyoke Health, which has a mobile vaccination van.
The new series of vaccination clinics, he explained, was in response to the return to campus and school for many. “People are really ramping up for the school year right now. Faculty and staff are coming back, at least a couple days a week in the office, Sept. 7 is the first day of school,” he said, adding they wanted to offer everyone a chance to be vaccinated if they chose to do so somewhere in their community.
“We wanted to offer everyone, even people who live in a neighboring community vaccinations where they are familiar with and feel comfortable with,” he said.
Yurko said that while HCC would serve as the host site for the clinics, it was an outside company called Curative that would administer vaccines. “They’re a healthcare company that has been really involved in the testing and vaccinations in Western Mass.,” he said. The vaccination clinics began on Aug. 24 and will be hosted each Tuesday through September from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Other vaccination dates include Aug. 31, Sept. 7, Sept. 14, Sept. 21 and Sept. 28.
At the time of talking to Reminder Publishing, Yurko said the clinics will just be hosted on Tuesdays and the clinics would take place before the free COVID-19 testing that they continue to host through the Holyoke Board of Health. The vaccination clinics will also take place where the testing is conducted outside of the Bartley Center.
Yurko said there would be no restrictions as to who would be able to receive the vaccine, which would be provided at no cost. While walk-in appointments would be accepted if there were enough vaccines available, there was also a way for people to ensure appointments. “There’s a link … people can sign up for a specific day and time just to make sure there are enough vaccines available if everyone wants them,” he said.
He explained that while they have only planned to host the clinics through September at this time, continuing the clinics beyond that would depend on how many people were utilizing the vaccination site. “As long as people are coming in and taking advantage of it, we’ll take advantage of it as long as our partner thinks it’s feasible,” he said, adding that they would “assess if it makes sense to continue” the clinics following the September dates.
He said while there’s no way to know how well-utilized the clinics will be until they begin, he hoped that people would use the clinics if needed. “I assume a lot of people [will use it.] I hope that most people are vaccinated, I strongly encourage people to get vaccines if they’re not already,” he said. “I’m hoping they’ll take advantage.”
Yurko said that while HCC was not mandating vaccinations for students, staff and faculty, there were some members of the campus community that would be required to be vaccinated due to their fieldwork. “There are some specific programs [such as] health science, there’s a clinical component, [so] they will need to be vaccinated. They will be required, their labs take them into clinical healthcare facilities,” he said.
He emphasized that the pandemic was “a fluid issue.” He said, “Things are always evolving, depending on what the situation is, we will adjust.” Yurko said while they don’t have a vaccine mandate, there is an indoor mask mandate in all campus buildings except for when people are in their private offices.
“We’ll take our directions from Mass DPH [Department of Public Health] and CDC [Center for Disease Control], and make adjustments as necessary for the health and safety of our campus and community,” he said.
Those interested in making an appointment or getting more information should visit curative/hcc.