COLUMBUS, Ohio — More and more walk-in clinics are popping up across the state with the hope of making it easier for people to get vaccinated.
OhioHealth is now offering walk-in appointments for the Pfizer vaccine from noon to 2 p.m.
The services will be offered through Friday at the OhioHealth David P. Blom Administrative Campus on 3430 OhioHealth Pkwy, according to a release. The vaccine will be available to anyone 16 and older, provided they bring identification that shows their name and age.
Patients below the age of 18 will be required to be accompanied by a parent or guardian, according to the release from OhioHealth.
According to a spokesperson, OhioHealth was initially vaccinating 3,000 people a day at the David P. Blom Administrative Campus location. Then that number dropped to 1,500.
Joseph Gastaldo is an infectious disease expert with OhioHealth. He said the walk-in clinics are the result of a large supply of the vaccines, but a lack of people willing to take them.
“We really need to get creative into bringing vaccines to places where people work, houses of worship, partnering up with employers, vaccine mobile clinics where we go to underserved communities. We really need to creative to bring vaccines to the people and to remove more barriers,” Dr. Gastaldo said.
Gastaldo believes vaccine hesitancy is one of those barriers.
“We have to talk to people in a respectful, loving, non-judgmental manner. People do have concerns but many people don’t have a reliable source to go to get their concerns answered appropriately,” Gastaldo said.
A separate walk-in clinic will also be offered at OhioHealth’s Ontario vaccination clinic.
For more information, or to guarantee a spot, call OhioHealth at 614-533-6999. You can learn more about the vaccine here.