SUNY Oswego student vaccine clinic

OSWEGO, N.Y. —The SUNY Oswego community said goodbye to the coronavirus and hello to the COVID-19 vaccine by hosting a clinic that was geared towards protecting the student body.

SUNY Oswego junior, Kimberly Reilly, has been waiting to get the COVID-19 vaccine since it became available and is ecstatic about being able to receive it. 

“I’m so lucky that they’re giving this to us the day that it opens for participants over 15 years old in New York State. I’m so lucky that I get to get it on April 6th the day that, that happens”, Reilly said. 

The clinic took place this past Tuesday from 9 A.M until 5 P.M. which aimed to vaccinate solely students and staff from the campus community. Deputy to the University President Pam Caraccioli says the event went smoothly.

“We partnered with Wegmans to do that delivery. They did everything. Provided security, and some EMS support. They were able to deliver 450 vaccines”, President Caraccoli said.

This is the second clinic that the school has hosted. With the first being an open-pod. An open-pod’s purpose is to group the town and city residents together with the college community, making it available for all. Chief Officer of Communication Wayne Westervelt says their first event was at Laker Hall, and it went just as successfully.

“Laker is very much more accessible to the community, so when we have an open pod, you know Laker works best for a, one a larger population, but two for the wider community. And as Pam said Hewitt is just more advantageous and accessible for our students”, Chief Officer Westervelt said.

Due to the size of the campus, SUNY Oswego is able to utilize their larger buildings to house their COVID centered events from Laker, to Lee, to Hewitt from the number of people they account to vaccinate for. 

Administrators say that all clinics not listed as “open-pod” are strictly student sponsored events and should not include anyone from outside of the organization. They also say that the school has at least three more clinics planned for the next few weeks and are telling students to look out for future emails in their inboxes.

Their goal is to vaccinate the entire campus community by the end of the spring 2021 semester.