NAH staff at the clinic were able to vaccinate 250 eligible community members Wednesday and have plans to administer 1,000 more doses by the end of the week.

The team is capable of administering 500 first doses and 500 second doses of the Moderna vaccine every day. For now, though, as a result of limited vaccines allocated to Coconino County, NAH has been provided 250 per day. Because of the condensed schedule this week, the team plans to vaccinate 500 individuals both Thursday and Friday, but unless vaccine allocations to the county are increased, NAH will likely continue at the 250 vaccines per-day rate starting next week.

“We realize that we don’t have as much vaccine as we’d like, but I think it’s important even with the amount of vaccine we have to do what we can with what we have and get vaccines in arms as quickly as possible,” said NAH Chief Quality Officer Dr. John Mougin.

The clinic is currently open on weekdays and eligible individuals as specified by Coconino County can sign up for appointments on the NAH website. New appointments open Friday afternoons, but fill quickly. All 1,250 appointments for this week were booked within five hours.

Members of the Phase 1b priority group — those age 65 and older, education workers and law enforcement — make up most of the appointments at the new clinic, though Mougin said there will be some overlap of NAH employees and other Phase 1a healthcare workers receiving their second doses. Previously, NAH was vaccinating its employees and other healthcare workers at the NorthStar Medical Offices.

Since early January, NAH has been working with Coconino County to find a space away from Flagstaff Medical Center where it could vaccinate community members and was connected with the Elks Lodge, which had offered the county its San Francisco Street facility for pandemic response efforts.

“This is what the Elks do. We support Flagstaff and we want people to know we exist,” said Charlie Ward, the leading officer of the local Elks Lodge. “This is the ideal place to be. This facility is perfect for it.”

The new clinic is currently in the Lodge’s event hall, which has been empty for much of the last year because it is not able to host its typical weddings and other celebrations during the pandemic.

Now, however, the hall has been split in half, with six stations for simultaneous vaccinations on one side, and spaced chairs on the other, where vaccine recipients must wait 15 to 30 minutes so that staff can observe if they have any allergic reactions to the shot.

The vaccination team currently includes nurses and paramedics who are administering shots, as well as retired healthcare professionals and a few other volunteers who help guide community members through the clinic.

At Fort Tuthill, which similarly distributes up to 300 vaccine doses a day, Coconino County has assistance from outside groups including the National Guard. NAH does not yet have such support, though it plans to begin working on a process for interested volunteers to participate.

“We’re learning a lot from today,” said Susan Huerta, NAH’s interim practice manager for community vaccine clinics, late Wednesday morning. “We can definitely use help with traffic control and checking people in outside. Many hands make for light work.”

The Elks Lodge was selected not only for its proximity to the hospital, from which vaccines are transported daily, but also because it has the space for both indoor and outdoor vaccinations. NAH plans to hold the clinic for at least three months and to switch to a drive-thru format as soon as the weather improves.

Mougin said plans will likely change as new vaccine developments are made, such as an approval of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine, but the current goal is to provide first and second doses throughout the first two months of operation and then finish off second doses during the third month before reevaluating the need for the clinic.

Bob Gagnaire, 69, had one of Wednesday’s earliest appointments to receive his first dose of the vaccine, a decision he said was prompted by his desire to see his grandchildren.

“It sure beats having COVID,” Gagnaire said. “I don’t want to say it’s taking a gamble, because it’s not. I’m going to do this because so-called health experts advise me to.”

Mary McKell, who lives just a few blocks away from the Elks Lodge, said the new clinic allowed her to get a coveted vaccine appointment she was unable to book at Fort Tuthill due to difficulties navigating Coconino County’s website.

“I feel so fortunate that I had a chance to get one today because I know people have been waiting for a long time,” said McKell, who is also over age 65 and therefore currently eligible for the vaccine. “I just need the extra protection and I think it’s great when everybody gets the vaccine, we’ll be moving towards the herd immunity.”

Ward, 66, received the clinic’s first vaccination, noting that he was glad to be the “guinea pig.”

“I’m real happy to have it,” Ward said of the shot. “I had COVID back in June. It wasn’t hospital bad, but it was bad enough. I had a fever of 103 for about five days, I couldn’t taste or smell about four days and lost almost 20 pounds. I’m in my last belt loop now!”

Health officials nationwide are encouraging those who receive the vaccine, as well as other community members, to continue taking COVID-19 precautions including wearing masks, frequently washing hands and distancing from others.

“All those things are still going to be important until we get 70% of our communities either immune from natural immunity from COVID or from immunization,” Mougin said.