Courtney Luciana photo
Preparing a Covid-19 vaccine dose at The Towers.
Monday is the first official day that New Haveners 75 years and older can start getting vaccinated against Covid-19.
They have several options for where to go for the shot.
The New Haven Independent has received queries from readers about where to go in the wake of Gov. Ned Lamont’s announcement last Thursday that the state would be transitioning to Phase 1b of its vaccine rollout.
Phase 1b includes a vast array of eligible vaccine recipients, including people ages 65 to 74 and essential frontline workers and those with comorbidities and those living and working in congregating settings. But the first wave of this new stage of the statewide vaccination plan is reserved for people who are 75 and older.
Based on interviews with healthcare providers across the city Monday morning, the Independent can report that there are several local Phase 1b vaccination sites taking appointments and ready to administer vaccines for people 75 and up.
Those sites include the city Health Department’s clinic at 54 Meadow St., Fair Haven Community Health Care’s headquarters at 374 Grand Ave., Cornell Scott Hill Health Center’s headquarters at 428 Columbus Ave., Yale University’s Lanman Center gymnasium at 74 Ashmun St, and, starting later this month, Hillhouse High School’s Floyd Little Fieldhouse at 480 Sherman Pkwy.
Finding the answer to that question, however, has not been easy for some local seniors and their family members eager to line up a shot for themselves or a loved one.
After navigating the state’s Vaccine Administration Management System (VAMS) registration form, the state Department of Public Health’s (DPH) website, and Yale New Haven Health’s (YNHH) online vaccine sign up page this weekend, some New Haveners were left wondering: Is there no Phase 1b vaccination site up and running in the city itself? Do New Haveners really have to travel out to the suburbs to get a life-saving shot?
“[N]o appts in New Haven for residents 75 or older,” Westville resident Dennis Serfilippi wrote in a Saturday afternoon comment on a previous Independent story, as he tried to secure a vaccination appointment for his 88-year-old mother. “YNHH is headquartered in New Haven and vaccinating 75 and older throughout the State, but not in New Haven. Imagine the outrage if any other class of people in the city was overlooked.”
“I think the primary point is that it’s as confusing and frustrating as hell and only a matter of life and death for those of us in the most vulnerable category,” 77-year-old East Rock resident (and Independent contributor) Lary Bloom told the Independent over the weekend as he tried to make a vaccination appointment with YNHH, and found slots available only in New London and Greenwich.
Contributed Photo
Mary Wade Home CEO David Hunter gets vaccinated
Below is a guide to some of the local Phase 1b vaccination sites currently taking appointments and ready to administer (or that have already started administering) shots to residents 75 and up.
Note that all vaccination sites require an appointment in advance. People cannot show up in person to get vaccinated without first scheduling a visit. The VAMS and YNHH online registration portals also make appointments available based on current capacity at any given site. If you don’t see an appointment available at a given site when you log in to check, either pick a different location or try again later.
According to the state Department of Public Health, of the 6,594 Connecticut residents who have died from Covid-19 so far, 5,318 have been 70 or older — including 3,850 who have been 80 or older. Click here for more city information about the vaccine.
City Health Department At 54 Meadow St.
Thomas Breen photo
Health Director Bond gets “shot” at 54 Meadow St.
City Health Director Maritza Bond said that the department’s Meadow Street headquarters, which has been home to a Phase 1a vaccination clinic since Dec. 28, is now open for appointments for Phase1b-eligible residents ages 75 and up.
The best way to schedule a vaccination appointment at the city Health Department site is by registering through the state’s online VAMS form here. She said that residents can also call 2 – 1‑1 or 877 – 918-2224 if they would like to schedule an appointment over the phone.
Bond said that the Health Department has vaccinated 2,490 Phase 1a-eligible healthcare providers and emergency first responders so far out of its Meadow Street clinic. She said her department has embarked on a series of community outreach initiatives — including presentations to places of worship, developing and handing out door hangers, and getting the word out through the city’s Elderly Services department — to let residents ages 75 and up know about their eligibility to get vaccinated under Phase 1b.
Click here to download the latest slideshow presentation by the city Health Department about the vaccine’s safety, efficacy, and availability.
Bond said that the city is also working with YNHH to set up a public vaccination site at Hillhouse’s Floyd Little Fieldhouse (see more below), and is working with community healthcare providers like Fair Haven Community Health Care to do pop up sites around the city — including a potential site at the Bella Vista senior apartment complex.
“Especially for seniors, we want to make sure that we’ll go to them, instead of them coming out to us,” she said.
Fair Haven Community Health Care At 374 Grand Ave.
Thomas Breen pre-pandemic photo
Dr. Lagarde (center) outside of the Fair Haven clinic with Gov. Ned Lamont and U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy.
Fair Haven Community Health Care CEO Suzanne Lagarde told the Independent that her Fair Haven-based clinic has already begun vaccinating residents 75 and up.
More broadly, she said, the clinic started vaccinating eligible healthcare workers under Phase 1a starting on Jan. 4.
Last Wednesday, the state informed the clinic that they could have a “soft start” to Phase 1b for patients and residents who are 75 and older.
“If we still had some slots not filled by Phase 1a, we could start reaching out to people 75 and older,” she said.
She said Fair Haven Community Healthcare is vaccinating roughly 120 people a day, and that they have vaccinated roughly 1,000 people so far between Phases 1a and 1b.
Lagarde said that her clinic has been reaching out to current Fair Haven Community Health Care patients who are 75 and up to schedule appointments. And, if there are vaccination slots still available on any given day, Fair Haven Community Healthcare uploads those times to the state’s VAMS database — which then allows for residents statewide to make an appointment and come to Fair Haven to get a shot.
“Our priority is getting in people from our community, our patients, people from Fair Haven in,” she said. “Our goal is to vaccinate as many people as we can as quickly as we can.”
She said that one of the impediments to ramping up vaccinations so far has been the state’s VAMS registration form, which she described as “a bit complicated and it takes time.” She said it’s not accessible to as many of Fair Haven Community Health Care’s patients as she’d like, because you need to have a computer, you need to be computer-literate, and you need to read and understand English (since the state form is in one language only.)
Lagarde said Fair Haven Community Health Care has devoted three full-time staff to reaching out to patients who qualify for this first wave of Phase 1b, and to helping them navigate and fill out the VAMS form.
For now, Lagarde said, the best way for someone 75 and up to make a vaccination appointment with Fair Haven Community Health Care is to register through the state’s VAMS portal. She said her clinic is in the process of setting up a vaccine-specific phone hotline for those who don’t want to go through VAMS.
“If you can’t” work VAMS and if you’re a current Fair Haven Community Health Care patients over 75, she said, “we’re trying to reach out to you.”
Cornell Scott Hill Health Center at 428 Columbus Ave.
Rahbya Mehrotra photo
Cornell Scott Hill Health Center’s Dr. Silvestri.
Cornell Scott Hill Health Center Chief Medical Officer Mark Silvestri said that his Hill-based community health center has also begun administering vaccines and taking appointments for Phase 1b-eligible residents 75 and up.
For now, those vaccinations are taking place entirely at the center’s Hill headquarters at 428 Columbus Ave.
“We’ve been a vaccinator since the state started Phase 1a” in early January, he said. He said the clinic has vaccinated roughly 500 people: A mix of Phase 1a healthcare workers and, as of last week, some Phase 1b residents 75 and older.
He said that the clinic has over 100 people already signed up and slated to be vaccinated at the Columbus Avenue site on Tuesday.
Anyone over 75 — regardless of whether or not they’re a current Cornell Scott Hill Health Center patient — can schedule an appointment to be vaccinated by calling the clinic’s general support line at 203 – 503-3000.
While the health center has reached out by text message to its current patients who are 75 and over, he said, Cornell Scott Hill Health Center’s vaccination clinic is open to anyone eligible and interested.
“We want the barriers to be as low as possible for people over 75,” he said.
For that reason, Silvestri added, Cornell Scott Hill Health Center is not participating in the state’s VAMS registration database.
“VAMS is a duplicate documentation system compared to our own electronic health records,” he said. While it’s a great option for employers to upload their employee rosters for vaccination, he said, VAMS struck his clinic as being too redundant and too much of a logistical headache for the clinic and for the patients they were trying to reach.
Thus their emphasis on encouraging Phase 1b-eligible residents over 75 to call their clinic’s phone number.
“It’s an evolving process as we go,” he said.
Yale’s Lanman Center at 74 Ashmun St.
Dan Renzetti photo
Getting vaccinated at Yale’s Lanman Center.
Zoom
YNHH’s Vin Petrini.
YNHH Senior Vice President, Public Affairs Vin Petrini confirmed for the Independent on Monday that the Lanman Center, Yale University’s athletic complex at 74 Ashmun St. that is also accessible off of Lake Place, will be open for vaccinating Phase 1b-eligible residents ages 75 and up as early as Friday.
He said that clinic will be run as a partnership between YNHH and Yale University.
The best way to make a vaccination appointment at the Lanman Center is by going to YNHH’s online vaccination scheduling form here.
Update: Yale spokesperson Karen Peart told the Independent by email Monday that the Lanman Center vaccination site has been open and active since Dec. 30. The site initially served Phase 1a populations, and has now transitioned to Phase 1b. She said the university has four clinics targeted at residents 75 and up that are slated to be open this week.
“Yale University is collaborating with the YNHHS to provide them the use of the Lanman facility for the general public in the same phase 1b of 75 and older,” she wrote. “In the short term and due to the need to vaccinate as soon as possible, YNHHS will have a limited parallel operation with the University at Lanman. Going forward, the university will provide the YNHHS the ability to use Lanman on the days that the University is not operating it. Capacity will range up to 1,000 vaccinations for each clinic in a few weeks.”
She said the university has also provided YNHH with access to a West Campus site, which should be converted to a vaccination clinic in the coming weeks.
Lary Bloom — who had had such trouble finding a nearby YNHH vaccination site over the weekend — told the Independent on Monday morning that he was ultimately able to schedule vaccination appointments for himself and his wife at the Lanman Center for this upcoming Friday evening.
Before Monday, surfing the YNHH registration form had only yielded potential vaccination appointments in Fairfield, New London, Greenwich, Old Saybrook, and other sites outside of New Haven. Luckily, Bloom said, he tried the YNHH form again on Monday — and found that the Lanman Center is now open for appointments.
“I just wonder if people who don’t have the patience or the ability to be computer-savvy and check every minute,” how they will be able to make an appointment, he said. Bloom said he also found the VAMS registration form so difficult to navigate it was like “being led down a blind alley.”
Serfilippi was also ultimately able to make a vaccination appointment for his octogenarian mother through the YNHH website. Her appointment won’t be at the Lanman Center, but rather at a YNHH site in North Haven.
“My mom has me and she’s got her family,” Serfilippi said. “There are a lot of people [in New Haven] whose kids are out of town” who can’t easily get to a vaccination clinic outside of the city, including North Haven.
When asked why YNHH was able to open other sites outside of New Haven before opening a New Haven-based Phase 1b vaccination location, Petrini said, “The other sites that are open are Northeast Medical Group sites. They were easy to operationalize. We’re working directly with the city [on the Floyd Little Fieldhouse site]. We wanted a working partnership with the city. And we needed a largescale site.”
He told the Independent on Friday that YNHH is continuing to administer Covid vaccinations for Phase 1a-eligible healthcare providers at its local York Street and St. Raphael’s hospital campuses.
Coming Soon — Floyd Little Fieldhouse
Thomas Breen pre-pandemic photo
The Floyd Little Fieldhouse, soon to host a Phase 1b vaccination site.
YNHH’s Petrini and City Health Director Bond also both stressed that the hospital and the city will soon open up a new public vaccination site inside Hillhouse High School’s Floyd Little Fieldhouse at 480 Sherman Pkwy.
Petrini said that YNHH has a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the city to set up such a site, and that the location will be open and running between Jan. 25 and Jan. 27.
“We’re ready to roll,” he said.
Bond was asked why the Floyd Little Fieldhouse vaccination site wasn’t already up and running by Monday’s start to Phase 1b given that the city has eyed that site for months.
“We didn’t need it for the number of individuals 75 and older” who have reached out to the city so far looking for a public vaccination site, she replied, given the other options available through Fair Haven Community Health Care, Cornell Scott Hill Health Center, YNHH, and the city’s Meadow Street clinic.
“We’re scaling up as the capacity increases,” she said. “It would be a waste of resources” to have it up and running too soon.
And when asked about why the city is setting up a public vaccination site indoors — as opposed to working on an outdoor clinic, like the one that recently opened at a former Pratt and Whitney airport runway in East Hartford—Bond said, “It’s the winter. We want to make sure we’re accommodating everyone.”
She said that the fieldhouse clinic will be run according to the same safety precautions as the Meadow Street clinic, which is also indoors. Tables will be spaced out more than six feet apart. Everyone will have to wear face masks. There will be signs clearly marking where people can stand, and where they should enter and exit.
“Everything will be really clear,” she promised.
New Haven's administration of policy has always been lacking. Poor communication and transparency leave a lot to be desired. When the citizens received their text messages, emails, and robocalls from Mayor Elicker none of those messages included a disclaimer or information that notified them there would be a gap in time they can get an appointment in their neighborhood or close to it. Perhaps there would be a waste of resources to make vaccines available but based on what calculation? As someone with a parent and aunt over the age of 75 residing in New Haven, I'd like to know. Our nation is not prepared to take care of our elderly. Having studied 'nursing compare' data over the years, the capacity to have specialized and affordable care for our elderly population is not up to par. Standards of living greatly reduce for those without the funding or family to intervene. We need to see this vaccine as a quality of life issue, not just what is costly or convenient.
Who in our city government is committed to complete information?
We have a family friend who is nearly 90 and immobile. How does she get the vaccine? Is anyone visiting residents for the disabled and homebound? How are they found and vaccinated, especially if calling 211 is not within their capabilities? We need more answers!!