New Hampshire transforms speedway into mass vaccination site, but some report

The New Hampshire Motor Speedway, which has previously played host to thousands of racing fans, has transformed into the state’s first coronavirus mass vaccination site. Starting at 8 a.m. Saturday morning, the first of what is expected to be more than 11,000 Granite Staters, were vaccinated for COVID-19 using the single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot.Eight separate lanes were set up with multiple vaccinators present in each lane, working to make sure the process goes as smoothly as possible.Such an event has never been tried before in New Hampshire, but state officials said they’re ready.”It’s amazing. It’s really working well,” New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said Saturday morning after receiving a tour of the mass vaccination site. “You have eight lanes of opportunity, if you will. Folks come in, it’s very organized, there’s a lot of communication about what the process is.”From 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, 300 volunteers will be helping to get needles into arms. Perry Plummer, with the New Hampshire COVID Vaccine Response Team said there are 11,400 doses and 11,400 appointments.”They’re going to be able to pull up, stay right in their car,” Plummer said. “They’re going to be put in multiple lanes, so traffic doesn’t back up. They’ll be greeted. They’ll be screened. They’ll go in, get their vaccine, and then they’ll go to a waiting area for their observation, and then they’ll leave.”For some, the process was relatively smooth. “From our appointment time at 8 a.m., we had gotten the inoculation by 9:04,” Barbara told WCVB affiliate WMUR by phone. However, WMUR reported receiving several messages hours after the event had started from people waiting in the vehicles. In some cases, people were in line between 3 and 4 hours, and many of the people in line were elderly or had seniors in the vehicle with them. “We sat there, and sat there and sat there,” Cathy said via Zoom. “Three hours for an elderly person, it was kind of a mess.”My mother is antsy because she doesn’t like to sit,” Kim Martin said via Zoom. “It’s a long sitting time.”Many were grateful for the vaccine once the experience was over. However, Martin said she contemplated leaving altogether and starting the process again at another time. “We would leave right now if there was a way out, but there is no way to get out of the traffic,” Martin said. “There’s no way to leave this and go home or we would.”The New Hampshire Motor Speedway site runs through Monday and is by appointment only. The state says a small waiting list is being set up in case anyone cancels so someone else can take their spot.The state said the cold weather caused iPads and other computer equipment to freeze up Saturday morning at NHMS and the vaccination site at Southern New Hampshire University. The sites moved to a backup paper system, which officials said caused a minimal delay.In a statement, Perry Plummer of the state’s COVID-19 response team said: “Despite the technological challenges created early this morning by the cold weather, our mass vaccination site remains on pace to set records and vaccinate nearly 12,000 Granite Staters this weekend. Our team of volunteers and state employees…

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