Monroe County looking to hire workers for mass vaccination sites

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — Monroe County is getting ready to open a number of new vaccination sites in order to accommodate not only those who haven’t been vaccinated yet but a surge of people who will want a booster shot. County leaders want to hire upward of 100 people to help open the sites as soon as possible.

Monroe County Executive Adam Bello has been focused on trying to change the minds of the unvaccinated but now he needs to be ready to offer the vaccinated a third shot too.

“This is going to be a Herculean effort, the number of doses of vaccine that we administered earlier this year was done over a much longer period of time,” he explained, “there are people that will already be eight months from when they received their second dose earlier this year, so we’re going to have that compression issue that we’re going to have to deal with.”

Modeling suggests there will be a surge of people locally who want the booster as soon as it’s available which is likely to be at the beginning of October and then a steady stream through early 2022.

“The reality of those numbers means that our current vaccine operations whether it’s a county-run clinic, the pharmacies, the healthcare settings or others will not be able to handle the volume that we’re going to be looking at, that means Monroe county will need to re-open and re-establish mass vaccination sites for its residents,” Bello said.

The County is currently looking for locations and hiring staff. It needs RNs, EMTs and Clerks who can handle the paperwork. The pay ranges from $17.50-$28.00/hour. Those who are interested can apply here.

Bello says while the work is ongoing to set up these new facilities, the focus on getting unvaccinated folks to change their minds continues.

“As we set up mass vaccination sites it’s so critically important that those don’t take the place of the current efforts that are undertaken for the first and second dose we have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said.