SAN ANTONIO – A pop-up clinic offering COVID-19 vaccines, booster shots and testing drew long lines outside the Bexar County jail Monday morning.
The drive-thru clinic, put on by the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office in conjunction with other agencies, opened at 6:30 a.m. and is scheduled to run through 5:30 p.m.
However, some people already began lining up in their cars as early as 5 a.m.
Stephan Villanueva, who works for the sheriff’s office, got in line as soon as he could, once his overnight shift had ended.
“I’m just getting tested just to get tested, just for peace of mind,” he said. “And then I’m vaccinated. I just want the booster shot. That’s the biggest thing. I hope I can get the booster.”
While Villanueva had a dual purpose for showing up, Sheriff Javier Salazar said he expected most people were there for the hard-to-come-by COVID test.
During a clinic that his office held last Tuesday, Salazar said they administered about 140 vaccines and about 300 tests.
“We’ve been doing such a good job of keeping it under control in the jail. We said, ‘Well, why not just expand our efforts?’ If we’re going to be doing testing for our employees and for the inmates, let’s just go and open it up to the public,” Salazar said.
The long lines that had formed Monday morning surprised the sheriff, who said he had not expected to see quite so many people arrive so early in the day.
Salazar said based on what he had seen, he predicted the overall turnout would exceed what they saw last week.
The clinic is being offered just as the number of new COVID cases in the area and throughout the country spikes, mainly due to the Omnicron variant.