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I’m sending this review to a few friends and such, plus our local Health Dept.:

So far, so good. I hardly felt the Moderna COVID-19 vaccination 1st shot; it was less noticeable than my flu shot, last year. Granted that the nurse giving the shots is probably doing over 100 per day by my calculation, so, she should be dang good at it by now!

11 hours later, my shoulder is a bit “achy”, but not bad. 7 hours in I started feeling “draggy” and headachy — almost like a sinus headache with a slight temperature, but without any actual congestion. But, that’s gone away, so now the slightly sore shoulder is all I’m noticing now. Good chance the headache was “something else”.

As for the clinic itself:

I got the shot at a “mass vaccination clinic” that is a joint effort of the local County Health Dept. and the National Guard. Basically the soldier handle the flow of people in, out, and about, and initial screening. The Health Dept. employees handle the vaccinations, most of the paperwork, etc. Organization looked very good, and everything went quickly and smoothly except for me finding the parking lot.* My earlier estimate that the clinic in total is doing ~100 shots per hour appears to be good. I did note that at the end of my 15 minute “recovery time”**, the “recovery area” had all chairs taken. So, increasing the throughput significantly would require a larger room or more rooms (more floor area.) I’m not sure who laid out the floor organization / flow design, but it was quite good: Done by a NG officer, perhaps? Then again, I’d think the building manager might have good people for that sort of thing, too.

It further appeared to me that going much over 100 people per hour would require a larger parking lot, or perhaps separate parking for the people running the show.

I’d also note there was good information on several monitors around the “recovery” area, a good post-shot handout, and so on. It appeared that considerable effort was expended to request that any person experiencing any odd side effect, even many days later, to please report such. At the end, a NG soldier asked each person if they were ok, on their way out, and then bid them a good day.

*The biggest problem was an unexpected and rather “slow” road(s) detour on the way in. A major intersection in that part of town has been all torn up / closed off. I’d missed that in the news, and was glad I headed in early. The Health Dept. might want to note that on their website. Then, while signs had been put up, much like for a yard sale, to guide patients in to the general location (a very well known building - the local University’s 10k capacity basketball arena), the modest size parking lot for patients itself was poorly marked, with “parking” in big characters and “vaccination” so small one had to be under 20’ away to read the latter. There are multiple parking lots in the same area, and I went right by the correct one (the others are restricted, etc.) on the 1st pass. No biggie, but it could be easily corrected.

**Another minor criticism I had was naming the post shot waiting area the “recovery area”. Yeah, I’m being nitpicky, but I’d have called it the “Post Vaccination Waiting Area” or something like that.

Legitimately, one can ask whether months of this is a good use of National Guard time. Initially, as a sort of training exercise, I’m fine with it. But, for months? Why not employ some of the many people now needing jobs, instead of paying them to sit at home? And get our NG soldiers back to matters military.

Last, the CDC vaccination record card should have, I think, a note on it to indicate how long (4-5 weeks) to wait / schedule the 2nd shot. (Mine does not.) I WAS cautioned to NOT lose that card.

All in all, I’d say the vaccine operation at this location was good.