By Tim Mastro

WILMINGTON — Delaware is trialling a walk-up registration COVID-19 vaccination site this week. If successful, the program could be expanded statewide.

The pilot site was hosted Wednesday in Wilmington through one of the state’s vaccination partners Curative Inc. A.J. Schall, the director of the Delaware Emergency Management Agency, said the state’s goal was around 250 vaccinations at the first event.

Mr. Schall said the aim of the walk-up registration sites are to reach eligible individuals who might not be on the state’s waiting list.

“We know there’s a disconnect at times with technology or people’s ability to book something a day or three or five days in the future,” Mr. Schall said. “We’re really trying to get to the 65 and older community that might not be signing up for the wait list, who might not be able to register or be on social media to see when these events open. That’s like fighting for concert tickets online. We want to be aware of everybody’s needs and make sure we don’t leave one part of the community underserved.”

Vouchers for the event were distributed to community groups to be passed out to Delawareans who are eligible for the vaccine by their age.

The challenge for this kind of registration process is it will take longer on site since there is no pre-registration and the providers will not know exactly how many people will be showing up at one time, said Mr. Schall.

If the program is successful, Mr. Schall said its something the state will want to do more of especially when there is an ample amount of supply. The state will be measuring the amount of vaccines the sites can push out and how much the on-site registration will slow down its through-put value.

“If we can manage both reservations and some type of on-demand need as well when supply allows us to, we want to do that,” Mr. Schall said. “We want there to be nothing left in the fridges or freezers on site at the end of the day and that’s our goal.”

The determining factor for the future will be balancing how many walk-ups can be managed in a day with how many individuals have already registered.

Gov. John Carney pointed out past events when the vaccine rollout first started, such as one at Salesianum, where the sites got overwhelmed with walk-ups after word got out doses were being administered. Numerous individuals were turned away from the Salesianum event after it filled up quickly.

“The flip-side is we can’t have a surge in demand that overwhelms the site and we learned that early on with the Salesianum event,” Gov. Carney said. “We had a registration process, we had a targeted population, but it wasn’t as tight as the vaccination sites since then. We got overwhelmed. Word passed through social media, people called their friends and family members, and people flocked to the site who may or may not have been eligible. We want to make sure we don’t get overwhelmed like that.”

Gov. Carney said if successful, these walk-up sites would help with the state’s equity initiatives, pointing out some of the best ways right now for eligible individuals to receive a vaccine is to register on the state’s waiting list  or making an appointment at a pharmacy online.

But this leaves out those who don’t have access to the internet, something on-site registration clinics would address, he said.

“We move vaccine the fastest through the registration process,” Gov. Carney said. “But if that registration is an impediment to you, there’s some friction there.”

If the state does eventually have the ability to take on-site registration statewide for vaccines, it will solve an issue which has come up in recent weeks. Mr. Schall said the state has seen more no-shows recently because those receiving the vaccine have registered at multiple sites.

“We know people are not showing up because they’re booking at multiple potential vaccination spots to see what comes first,” Mr. Schall said. “That’s great, they got it earlier, but we want to make sure that other shots they had scheduled still goes into someone’s arm who is eligible.”

Delaware has administered 394,234 doses of vaccine as of Tuesday at 11:59 p.m. and the Delaware Division of Public Health is reporting 88,361 doses remaining at that point in time. A total of 138,023 persons are fully vaccinated, including 131,214 who have received both doses of a two-dose vaccine series and 6,809 who received a one-dose series.

An additional 125,067 individuals have received one dose of a two-dose series.