New mass vaccination clinics open in Philadelphia & Delaware County

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- A combined 16,000 people will be vaccinated this weekend at two new mass clinics in Philadelphia and Delaware County.

One is a new FEMA site at Esperanza Community Center in Hunting Park, one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods by COVID-19.

Patients like Samuel Barios say they're relieved to have a clinic in their neighborhood.

"Lack of transportation for people, it's hard for them to get to remote locations, they don't have cars," he said.

The site will give shots to about 2,000 people per day in a neighborhood with one of the lowest vaccination rates.

Officials say only about 16% of the city's Hispanic population has been vaccinated.

"It's great for the neighborhood, yes," said Barios.

In Marple Township, lines of cars wrapped around Delaware County Community College. A new clinic there hopes to vaccinate 12,000 people this weekend with Johnson & Johnson.

"I was going to take anything I could get. I've been trying to get it for a while now," said Derrick Edwards.

The site is by appointment only and for the first weekend, open to only those in Phase 1a and 1b.

The county says as more vaccines become available, people are getting more flexibility with appointments.

"People can go online and pick which site and which vaccine they'd like to receive. If they want to have more certainty in their schedule, they can sign up at one of our permanent locations, or they can sign up for a time here and can come up here on the weekend," said Howard Lazarus, the executive director of Delaware County.

The county hopes to get 140,000 people vaccinated before summer.

"I have a lot of extenuating circumstances, so I wanted to get it out of the way to protect myself and my family," said Crystal White from Onley.

She says she's getting the shot in hopes life will soon return to normal.

"I'm hopeful," she added.

As of now, about a third of Philadelphians have been vaccinated.