University of Tennessee Starts Mass Vaccination of Students & Staff in Knoxville

The University of Tennessee Knoxville (UT) has started vaccinating students, staff, and faculty members, as well as everyone in the city aged 16 and above.

The Director of Student Health Center, Dr. Spencer Gregg, claimed that UT aims to do “a couple thousand” vaccinations per week following the shots’ high demand.

At present, UT Student Health Center vaccinates up to 200 people daily with the Moderna vaccine against the COVID-19 virus. The Head of the center stated the clinic is filling up very fast, but students and faculty staff have been responsive to help at these events. He also added that the clinic had been full ever since they’ve opened.

Weekly, UT hosts an open clinic to the public with 1,100 available appointments. Eventually, the university claims to be prepared to give thousands of shots every single week.

“So much of that is really dependent on how much vaccine gets allocated to us, but we’re prepared to go to that level,” Dr. Gregg said.

So far, the university has managed the allocation of nearly 8,000 shots. UT Student Health Care is hoping for 100 percent participation of students and staff in the process.

“For our faculty, staff, and students, it doesn’t matter to us where you get the vaccine, we just want you to get it,” Dr. Gregg added.

UT is prioritizing students living on campus for on-campus vaccination appointments and staff members who haven’t been inoculated yet. According to Dr. Gregg, the vaccination is the only thing that can help the university get back to normality, a pre-COVID lifestyle.

Universities across the country have started inoculation of their students, staff members, and population earlier this year.

Previously, the University of Houston, in collaboration with the pharmaceutical company Walgreens vaccinated 1,100 faculty members and students in Texas, as well as several people of vulnerable categories.

The first residents to receive the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines were healthcare workers and people older than 65. Since COVID-19 vaccines became available, Walgreens has provided more than four million vaccinations among the population and health centers.

Universities’ contribution has been noted during the pandemic since many universities offered their staff, health centers, or even allocated a $500,000 RV which will serve as RV Mobile Clinic for Black and Latinx Hampton Roads minorities in Virginia.

On the other hand, the University of Wyoming provided in-house tests to save lives by detecting the COVID-19 virus and cutting costs. The Department of Veterinary Sciences was to conduct the university’s in-house test program, which is considered to be the most innovative program across the country.

Although many people are being vaccinated with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, the University of Florida has decided to experiment vaccine’s efficiency by conducting a 1,000 person experiment divided into two groups. The first group will be vaccinated as soon as possible and constantly monitored, whereas the second group is the contacts of the first cohort who will get vaccinated later on.