Army Spc. Angel Laureano holds a vial of the COVID-19 vaccine at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda.

U.S. Secretary of Defense/Lisa Ferdinando / Flickr

Update: Gov. Larry Hogan officially announced on Tuesday that the mass vaccination site at Montgomery College’s Germantown campus will open the week of April 5, following weeks of confusion with the county’s local leaders.

Hogan said the opening is now possible thanks to a large boost in vaccine supply coming next week.

Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich said the new mass vaccination site will prevent residents from leaving the county to receive shots in other jurisdictions.

“With thousands of Montgomery County residents leaving the County and driving to other jurisdictions to get vaccinated, we are pleased to have a site that will provide better access for our residents and other Marylanders,” Elrich wrote in a statement.

Update March 17:

Earl Stoddard, the director of Montgomery County’s emergency management and homeland security agency, said on Wednesday that the mass vaccination site will likely open by April 1 — even if the county hasn’t received an adequate supply of vaccine doses to reach the 3,000 shots-a-day goal at the site.

“I don’t want to commit to a specific day, but I feel pretty confident saying it’s going to before April 1,” Stoddard said during a press briefing Wednesday. “Even for the mass vaccination sites across the state, they start operating around 250 doses a day, and they ramp up progressively over time so that you can be able to make sure that your system works, logistically.”

Original:

Getting a COVID-19 vaccine in Montgomery County might be about to get a lot easier.

Montgomery County officials said Tuesday that the Maryland Health Department will open a mass vaccination site at Montgomery College’s Germantown campus in the next few weeks. It will be run in partnership with Holy Cross Hospital.

Montgomery County Council President Tom Hucker tweeted the news Tuesday morning. “The squeaky wheel finally gets some oil!” he wrote, referencing repeated demands from county officials in recent weeks for such a site in the state’s most populous jurisdiction.

The new county-run site has a goal of administering 3,000 doses per day, which will require the state to increase the number of doses allotted to the county. Over the weekend, National Guard members and officials from the Maryland Department of Health did a walk-through of the new site.

“It’s very good news,” County Council member Nancy Navarro (D-District 4) tells DCist/WAMU. “It’s something we have been requesting for quite a long time, given our size, our level of diversity, and also the issues around equity.”

At a press conference last week, Hucker said the current system has failed to equitably distribute shots.

“Sadly, Montgomery County has lost more of our residents to COVID than any other jurisdiction in the state. We’re second behind Prince George’s in the number of cases,” he said. “But the state response has not recognized this reality.”

A spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Health declined a request for comment. “We are in active discussions with a number of counties regarding additional mass vaccination sites,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.

Maryland currently operates mass vaccination sites at Six Flags America Theme Park in Bowie, Regency Furniture Stadium (Blue Crabs Stadium) in Waldorf and M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. Two more sites will open soon, one at Wicomico Civic Center in Salisbury on Thursday and another at the Hagerstown Premium Outlets on March 25.

Eligible residents can pre-register online to schedule appointments.

Montgomery County residents have reportedly claimed the largest share of appointments at the Six Flags location in neighboring Prince George’s County. Still, Navarro hopes that having an in-county option will improve access for at-risk residents.

“When it comes to our Black and Brown communities and people who don’t have the ability to drive all the way to Six Flags, the notion of having something that’s geographically accessible is very important,” she says.

Virginia’s Department of Emergency Management announced today that it has begun to open more mass vaccination centers across the state, including one in Prince William County next week. Washington, D.C. currently runs high-capacity vaccination sites at the Entertainment and Sports Arena in Southeast, the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Northwest, and Providence Health Systems in Northeast.

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