SAN ANTONIO — More San Antonians are being vaccinated against the coronavirus by the day, but a large proportion of our population still has not received their first dose.
The good news is eligibility for the vaccine continues to open up, as now people over 50 can all be vaccinated if they choose. And as time goes on the issue won't be more demand than supply of vaccine, but educating those about vaccine safety to convince more people to get the shot.
"We are very optimistic about how are vaccination efforts now. Far more optimistic that we were a few months ago," Dr. Michael Almaleh, The Chief of Specialty Care for WellMed and the Medical Director for the COVID-19 WellMed mass vaccination clinics.
KENS 5 has created a COVID-19 vaccination heat map. The counties shaded in lighter teal or green are where more people, as much as 27 percent, are fully vaccinated. The dark blue are military bases, so we don't have data for those.
But you can see many of the counties shaded in the darker teal and blue colors indicate that fewer fully vaccinated are in the southern and western parts of the county. That is where WellMed's mass vaccination clinics focus their efforts.
"We have two mass vaccination clinics one of those clinics serves primarily the southside of San Antonio the Cisneros clinic," Dr. Almaleh said. "The other clinic our Lopez senior center service primarily the west side."
On Metro Health's COVID-19 landing page you'll find these maps that show northern counties have higher rates of vaccinations than southern counties. Dr. Almaleh says the mass vaccination centers throughout town are trying to even those numbers out.
"Those don't take into consideration volume so while a lot of the smaller vaccination areas smaller clinics areas that have received only 100 to 500 doses they may be more concentrated in other areas," Dr. Almaleh said,
Dr. Almaleh says by mid-May he believes roughly half of the population will be vaccinated. To register for WellMed's mass vaccination centers call their hotline at 833-968-1745. Operators will take calls from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week, until all slots are filled.
