A federally run mass-vaccination site will open next week at the Pipkin Building, White House officials announced Wednesday, March 31st.
The Memphis site is one of three such sites opening next week, Andy Slavitt, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a briefing Wednesday morning. Other sites will open next week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Greenbelt, Maryland.
Each of these sites will be able to administer 3,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine each day, Slavitt said. They are also the first federally run mass-vaccinations sites in each of their respective states.
On Monday, the federal government opened sites in Gary, Indiana, and St. Louis, Missouri. These are among the 25 mass-vaccination sites opened by the federal government. Together, these sites can administer 95,000 doses of the vaccine each day, Slavitt said.
Slavitt said the sites are to accelerate the vaccine program and to “reach the communities that have been most hurt by the pandemic.”
We need to keep case numbers down so we can save lives and give people the chance to get vaccinated in April, May, and June so we can enter the summer on the strongest footing possible.
Andy Slavitt
acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
“All these efforts are on behalf of one thing: saving lives,” Slavitt said. “We need to keep case numbers down so we can save lives and give people the chance to get vaccinated in April, May, and June so we can enter the summer on the strongest footing possible.”
For the federal vaccination program, Slavitt asked for help from local government leaders. He asked for governors, mayors, and other elected officials to reinstate mask mandates in their jurisdictions.
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said resources in place now will be directed to other points of distribution (PODs) across the county.
