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VENTURA, Calif .– Ventura County has set up vaccination sites for the public to receive a free COVID-19 vaccine.
The Ventura County Fairgrounds is already a COVID testing site, but now people are lining up outside another building to get vaccinated.
“I wanted to get the vaccine as soon as possible,” said Walter Wheelis, who is a resident of Westlake Village.
Wheelis said he waited patiently for the vaccine and was not nervous.
“No,” Whellis said. “Just excited to get the shot.”
Ventura County’s first vaccination site opened in South Oxnard, followed by the fairgrounds on Monday.
“Right now, we have two main and specialty sites in the public health facility, as well as one for the first responder community,” said Barry Zimmerman, deputy chief director of the Agency. Ventura County Health Care. “We are looking to set up a site in East County where we will secure a facility this week, and then we will look for several other locations in the county.”
County leaders hope to eventually have nine sites. Currently, the county is in phase 1-A of the vaccine rollout. This includes healthcare workers and people who live in long-term care facilities. Just like Haydriane Occidental works in a dental practice in Oxnard.
“My office was offering to vaccinate all staff, so you might as well go,” Occidental said.
The county hopes to move on to the next phase of the vaccination plan in two weeks. People can register online once their phase has started. Once people are vaccinated, they are asked to stay in a waiting area for 15 minutes to make sure they have no reaction.
“It really didn’t look like anything,” Occidental said.
Nearly 15,000 vaccines have been distributed and the county has just received an additional 10,000 from the state.
“We hope to build the capacity of our immunization systems to be able to produce 5,000 vaccines per day,” Zimmerman said. “Right now, with all the centers we’ve opened, we’re around 2,200 to 2,500, so we would like to double that number by the end of the month. Ultimately, our goal is to receive up to 10,000 vaccinations per day. “
The county is also looking for volunteers to help with vaccination sites.
If you would like to register to get vaccinated or volunteer to work at a vaccination site, click here.
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