For the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in America, thousands of people passed through PNC Park Saturday.
It wasn’t for a team-related event, but rather the largest COVID-19 vaccination event so far in Pittsburgh, inoculating over 2,500 people, specifically high-risk patients age 75 years and older.
“It’s been one of the most well-organized, effective events that I’ve seen done anywhere,” David Holmberg, the CEO of Highmark Health, said.
On Jan. 14, the Pirates announced that they were going to utilize PNC Park as a mass vaccination site after working with Highmark and Allegheny Health Network. Saturday was a bit of a trial run for future events.
“We had a conversation between Bob Nutting, [Pirates team president] Travis Williams and myself about how are we going to fight this fight together,” Holmberg said. “Bob Nutting offered up the stadium for as many days as we can do and get as much vaccine as we could help as many people as possible.”
There were smiles and even some tears of joy from those who received their first shot. As more vaccines are secured, there should be more to come.
“Showing this at 2,500 [people], we can easily make this much bigger and greater,” Williams said. “We have much more room and space. They have more clinicians. We just need more supply in this region.”
The event was held from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and was by appointment only. Patients went to the Home Plate Club in the stadium and were cycled through the stadium’s media room to receive the vaccine. The process took less than 30 minutes.
Those who were vaccinated Saturday will return to PNC Park on Feb. 27 to receive their second dose.
There aren’t any other event dates set, but PNC Park could host those events not only for February and March while the team is at home or in Florida, but into the regular season as well.
“For us, we can run this event any time of the day, and that window can be flexible,” Williams said. “We can do it in-season, even when it spans into the season where we’re playing games, we can certainly go in a window where the team’s on the road and still pull off an event like this.”
According to Dr. Imran Qadeer, the chief medical officer of Allegheny General Hospital, other mass vaccination events in the area had been limited to around 300 people, so Saturday at PNC Park was over eight-times that amount. Over 60,000 people in the area have received vaccines through AGH facilities, but the success of Saturday was encouraging going forward.
“It is very relieving,” Qadeer said.