UTEP to Start COVID-19 Vaccination of Faculty, Staff and Current Students
Last Updated on January 15, 2021 at 5:00 PM
Originally published January 15, 2021
By UC Staff
UTEP Communications
EL PASO, Texas – The University of Texas at El Paso will administer nearly 1,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine next week to current students, faculty and staff. The vaccine has been allocated to UTEP by the State of Texas.
UTEP will administer the vaccines – 975 doses – on Wednesday and Thursday, January 20-21 on the UTEP campus.
The vaccines will be used for faculty, staff and current students who are healthcare workers in clinical settings who work directly with COVID-19 positive patients or infectious materials, those who work in long-term care facilities, emergency medical teams, home health care providers, hospice workers, outpatient staff who work with symptomatic patients, community pharmacy staff, public health workers, people involved in COVID-19 testing and vaccination programs, school nurses and those who work in mortuaries.
Faculty, staff and current students who pre-registered are being contacted by UTEP and scheduled for their vaccination. There will be no walk-in vaccinations at UTEP.
If there are any doses remaining after the highest priority group has been vaccinated, the University will contact faculty, staff and current students who are 65 and older or 18 and older who have one of the health conditions that makes them vulnerable to COVID-19 who have pre-registered with UTEP for vaccination.
“We are grateful to be able to take care of our faculty, staff and students in this way,” said UTEP President Heather Wilson. “As the supply of vaccine increases over the coming weeks and months, we hope to expand our program to include families, alumni and others to be part of an effort that vaccinates a lot of people in a short period of time. We will try to help the community.”
Appointments are being scheduled for those people who have signed up and filled out a consent form. Those in the highest priority groups will receive an email to schedule a vaccination appointment.
The vaccinations will be administered in UTEP’s new Interdisciplinary Research Building. Parking will be free in the UTEP Sun Bowl Parking Garage for those getting vaccinated.
UTEP has research facilities that can handle ultra-cold vaccines and the School of Pharmacy students and faculty that can immunize people. UTEP applied to become a vaccination site through the state vaccination program in December and was approved in early January. These will be the first COVID-19 vaccines administered by UTEP.
