Robyne / KUAC
Fairbanks held its largest mass vaccination clinic so far at the Carlson Center arena yesterday. 1,900 people were scheduled for COVID-19 vaccinations over 10 hours. The Interior Alaska Unified Command has learned a lot about cycling hundreds of people, who must stay far apart from each other, through the Point of Dispensing clinic since the first one January 15.
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The detailed number for the borough budget is $173,496,346. And will require taxpayers to pay $13.799 for every $100,000 in value of their property. That mill rate is just under 1% less (down .092 mills) from last year.
Ward says he was able to check several boxes with the spending plan, including keeping it $6,594,684 under the voter approved tax revenue cap, and he put 10% of tax revenue, $12,006,660, in the Capital Improvement and Maintenance Reserve. The biggest expense in the budget is the contribution to the school district, and there is no change from last year.
He also balanced the budget but only with leftover money from last year. $5,643,294 went unspent.
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The clinic takes full advantage of the space in the John A. Carlson Community Activity Center, with greeters directing patients to sanitize their hands, then walk down a wide aisle to register at a pair of desks, before being directed to a vaccination table. Monitoring some of the activity is Dr. Mark Simon from the Emergency Department at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. He says it is quite a bit different from the first clinics, which were not as smooth.
Hundreds of cars jammed the front parking lot of the Carlson Center at previous clinics so patient parking was moved to the back.
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The logistics for moving hundreds of people through here over a two-day mass clinic are actually pretty simple, but as Dr. Mark Simon explains them, he notes they are still getting worked out.
“So there will be a screening process that will happen in the car, and some paperwork for registration. And then, there has been a text process that they’ve been using, to notify people to come in, but sometimes there have been some hiccups with that.”
Dr. Simon came over to the Carlson Center Wednesday afternoon after his shift in the Emergency Department at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital to describe what patients might experience.
According to an announcement made by the Fairbanks North Star Borough on Tuesday, 625 COVID-19 vaccination appointments will be available. Online registration begins at 10 a.m. Wednesday.