All public COVID-19 vaccination sites will be closed Wednesday, March 17, due to anticipated severe weather, said City of Memphis COO Doug McGowen.

Those with appointments for Wednesday will receive an email to reschedule for openings on Thursday, Friday or Saturday of this week. If those times don’t work, those people will be offered first chance at appointments for next week, he said.

The pop-up clinic in Hickory Hill scheduled for Wednesday has been moved to Saturday, March 20, at World Overcomers Church, 6093 Hickory Ridge Mall.

New face mask, health directives coming

Last week, 37,000 shots were put in arms between the five fixed sites and local hospitals. This week, the city has 39,000 doses. In addition, the hospitals have several thousand doses, and 14,000 more doses are now available in doctor’s offices, community clinics and dialysis centers.

Two thousand doses were delivered in a Frayser pop-up last weekend at the Memphis Fire Academy. The site has been scheduled again this weekend to reach people in ZIP code 38127. A pop-up is scheduled this weekend at the Hickory Ridge Mall site. 

Pop-ups are coming soon to serve ZIP code 38106 in southwest Memphis and Orange Mound. 

Beginning Wednesday, March 17, the City of Memphis will begin a homeless and homebound vaccination program. It is doing it with the Community Alliance for the Homeless, the Aging Commission of the Mid-South and MIFA, which have identified several hundreds people in the most urgent need and with few transportation options.

“Our health care navigators, who are all trained paramedics, will visit these individuals with a vaccine to make sure that they’re inoculated and also take care of any other healthcare needs that they have,” McGowen said.

SignUpGenius

After slightly more than 24 hours with the a new state scheduling system late last week, the city switched back to SignUpGenius. 

Shelby County returns to SignUpGenius

“Nobody was denied the opportunity to get an appointment because of that,” McGowen said. “We identified some problems and quickly decided to go back to the system that allowed us to have some success to this point.”

Calls to 901-222-SHOT are now going to a new call center with more than 750 agents. While calls are taken seven days a week, they are answered only from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

“If you call before those hours, you’ll likely be on hold. If you call after those hours, you’ll like to be on hold,” McGowen said.