More vaccine sites coming for Fresno County residents. Here’s where they will be
A new coronavirus vaccination clinic started offering shots Tuesday afternoon in the Fresno County community of Sanger, adding another weapon to the county’s arsenal of sites providing vaccine against COVID-19.
Sanger City Manager Tim Chapa said the clinic, which for months has been providing coronavirus testing for people, had already lined up more than 100 reservations for shots in its first hour and a half of operation at the Sanger Community Center.
In a video briefing with Fresno County health officials, Chapa said it is modeled after a state-contracted OptumServe testing-turned-vaccine site at Reedley College in Reedley.
Chapa said the clinic will be able to do about 420 vaccinations daily, five days a week from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
“This is something that’s been needed. As we laid things out, there was kind of a blank spot in Sanger,” Fresno County Supervisor Buddy Mendes said. “The only way people in Sanger were getting vaccinated was to either go to Reedley or to Fresno.”
At about 27,000 people, Sanger is the third largest city in Fresno County behind Fresno and Clovis.
Appointments are required for shots at the Sanger OptumServe site, as well as the Reedley site and Fresno County’s mass vaccination site at the Fresno Fairgrounds in southeast Fresno. Registration for appointments are through the state’s MyTurn system online at myturn.ca.gov/. People who don’t have internet access or are not adept at using a computer can also call MyTurn at 833-422-4255 to register for an appointment.
Joe Prado, community health manager for the Fresno County Department of Public Health, said that the county is also working on ramping up at least three more vaccination clinics by the end of March – in Kerman, Selma and Mendota. A fourth county clinic in Kingsburg is also under consideration, Prado said.
Expanding the number of sites where shots are available is a key part of the county’s goal of getting as many as 650,000 people vaccinated by the end of this summer. Mendes, who was involved in a trio of clinics that vaccinated more than 1,000 farmers and farm workers in southwestern Fresno County, said it is crucial for people to get their shots.
“The vaccine is good,” he said. “If we’re ever going to get back to some sort of normal, a significant amount of the population – at least 80% of everybody over 16 – needs to be vaccinated. That’s the only way we’re going to beat this thing.”
Among those now eligible for shots under California’s program are health care workers, people ages 65 and older, people who work in the education, childcare and food and agriculture industries, and starting this week, people ages 16 to 64 with serious medical conditions that put them at higher risk for complications from COVID-19.
Also newly eligible are couriers, utility workers and social workers who provide emergency assistance, as well as people in the public transit sector.
In Fresno County, more than 262,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine have been administered to residents, and almost half a million doses have been given across Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced and Tulare counties, according to information from the state Department of Public Health.
Tuesday case updates
Fresno County reported 59 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 since Monday’s update. Since the first coronavirus case was identified in early March 2020, the number of people who have at some point been infected with the virus now stands at 97,520. Of those, 1,535 have died from the disease. No additional deaths were reported by county health officials as of Tuesday afternoon.
In other central San Joaquin Valley counties, Tuesday’s updates included:
Kings County: 28 new cases, 22,408 to date; no additional deaths, 236 to date. More than 7,200 of the cases, and 17 deaths, have been among inmates at state prisons in Avenal and Corcoran. Almost 23,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Kings County.
Madera County: 15 new cases, 15,737 to date; four additional deaths, 226 to date. More than 2,500 of the county’s cases have occurred among inmates at state prisons in Chowchilla. To date, more than 37,000 vaccine shots have been given.
Mariposa County: One new case, 399 to date; no additional deaths, seven to date.
Merced County: 39 new cases, 29,979 to date; no additional deaths, 423 to date. Almost 58,000 coronavirus shots have been administered to county residents.
Tulare County: 45 new cases, 48,649 to date; three additional deaths, 787 to date. The number of vaccinations given to Tulare County residents is almost 108,000.
Since the first local cases in the global COVID-19 pandemic were reported in the Valley 12 months ago, almost 215,000 confirmed cases have been reported, whether people felt symptoms of the respiratory disease or not. Of those, 3,214 died from the disease.
This story was originally published March 16, 2021 at 5:31 PM.
