CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Novant Health announced it will host a mass COVID-19 vaccine clinic at Spectrum Center, home of the Charlotte Hornets, in uptown next week.
The clinic will be held on Saturday, Feb. 13. Appointments have not opened yet. Novant patients pre-registered will be notified through MyChart when appointments open and they qualify to book one.
"We'll work with some of the churches in that area to see how many we can get through there and then depending on the number of vaccines we supplement, folks that are waitlisted, to really get the patients in that need and want the vaccine," said Mark Moyer, vice president of the community health and wellness institute for Novant Health.
Next week, Novant Health will be allocated 12,850 doses of vaccines from the state. Some of those vaccines are extra allocations for equity or large scale events. A portion of those vaccines will be used at the Spectrum Center clinic.
"We're still working through the number of vaccines as we get those from the state to determine how big that would be," said Moyer.
So far, Novant Health has administered more than 66,000 vaccines in the Charlotte--area.
This will be the third clinic in Charlotte hosted by Novant in less than a week. They will host a clinic at the Park Expo, as well as a joint effort with Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools at McClintock Middle School on Saturday. CMS officials said they hope to vaccinate at least 165 student-facing staff members who are 65 and older.
On Friday, the Park Expo was transformed. Nearly 4,000 people are scheduled to be vaccinated there.
"It's a good location to meet some of the needs that we have in our underserved communities. Being as open as it is, we thought it was a great area to come through get a lot of throughput have some social distancing meet some community need we have out there," said Moyer.
They worked with local church and community leaders to book appointments for people 65 and older who haven't been able to access vaccine as easily.
"We have an intentional strategy of ensuring that those high risk individuals, those most vulnerable, those in priority zip codes have access to the vaccine. That's part of our equity strategy," said Dr. Jerome Williams with Novant Health.
Atrium Health, Charlotte's other major health care provider, has hosted successful mass vaccination clinics at Bank of America Stadium and Charlotte Motor Speedway in recent weeks.
North Carolina is still in Group 2 of vaccinations, meaning adults age 65 and older are eligible for the shot, regardless of health conditions or living situation.
Dr. David Priest, an infectious disease expert with Novant Health, shared optimism about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The company applied for emergency authorization for the single-use shot Thursday. Priest said a single-shot vaccine could be extremely helpful in areas where supplies are limited or harder to access.