Thread by @chrisprener

I’ve got a few thoughts on the mass vax event I was at today at STLCC’s Forest Park campus.

The excellent - we got vaccinated! 🥳

The great - the @Missouri_NG, @MoSEMA_ DMAT, @SLMPD personnel (including recruits, I think?), and volunteers were all super friendly. 1/12

Once you reached the inside of the gymnasium, the check-in, paperwork, vaccination, and post-vax 15 minute waiting period were all really smooth, well-organized, and efficient. 2/12

https://twitter.com/chrisprener/status/1375117980888145921?s=20

This gets me to the bad - it took awhile to get to that point. We'll start with sign-up you picked an appointment (in half-hour blocks) but the email did not tell you how to drive into the site, where to park, and did not provide your appointment time. 3/12

On the drive up to the campus, there was only one electronic sign I saw and, while there were some MO Guard, SLMPD, and MSHP personnel, no one was really directing traffic or indicating where you needed to go. That changed to some degree over the morning, but it was chaotic. 4/12

Once found parking (challenging), there were no signs - the line was so long it was sort of obvious where you needed to go but hard to find the end. If it had been more efficient, however, anyone who has never been to the campus would have to guess where they needed to go. 5/

There were no stanchions to create a line, and just a few MO Guard personnel trying to corral folks into a snaking line in the plaza about ~2 blocks away from the actual vaccination site. No one asked when our appointment was, or tried to turn back folks who came too early. 6/12

This is an obvious point of improvement - they need to screen folks before they get in line to make sure they are there at roughly when they need to be. If you're going to have people sign-up for blocks of time, respect that and organize the system accordingly. 7/12

They could also have people complete the paperwork ahead of time - something some of the MO NG personnel were actually suggesting 👇 - this would have done maybe a little to increase the efficiency of the process, but not as much as screening. 8/12

https://twitter.com/chrisprener/status/1375106739243253767?s=20

The lack of enforcing appointment times and creating a more efficient line system is the ugly of the whole process - folks like @PDBeth and I were in-line for nearly two hours this morning before we were vaccinated. 9/12

I'm worried for folks this afternoon who are facing the threat of downpours and severe thunderstorms. The Guard personnel were starting to have people line-up inside the parking garage, but it was obvious as we were leaving (11:45-ish) that there was not enough room... 10/12

... inside for everyone who was inline should it start to downpour.

It was also unclear how they were managing it for folks who could not physically stand outside in the chilly weather for that long - I hope a system was in place for that. 11/12

So, a summary - hooray for vaccinations, and I'm grateful for the folks working there. But it could have been a far more organized/less chaotic experience - tell people where to park, invest in signage, screen people when they get in line, and come up with rain/heat plans. 12/12