COVID-19 Clinic Volunteers Are Key For Returning To Normal

Tuolumne County COVID-19 vaccine clinic

Sonora, CA – One key in getting back to normal, say Tuolumne County officials, is volunteers helping during weekly COVID-19 vaccine clinics.

“We need as many as we can get,” Tuolumne County Senior Administrative Analyst Liz Peterson

There are three different areas where people can volunteer for the coronavirus vaccine clinics. One area is non-medical help, which Peterson details, “We need people to help with like parking or set up and take down or just like patient screening or some basic data entry stuff.”

Volunteers to answer the phones are in great demand as well for the COVID-19 public information line that has been up and running since the beginning of the pandemic. Finally, clinical assistance is also needed. Those are individuals with medical licenses who are qualified to administer the vaccine.

Peterson outlines the timeframes that volunteers are needed, “We are generally operating our vaccine clinics on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Times are a bit flexible. The public information line is currently in operation Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., so that is the time we are looking for folks to help with that.”

To volunteer, you must register through the state disaster healthcare volunteer system, which has information and forms to be filled out and can be found here.

Peterson sums up the value of volunteers this way, “The more people that we can get to assist with the vaccine clinics, the more vaccines we can get into people’s arms. That takes a lot of people and a lot of resources. Public health staff are stretched thin, and we need kind of an ‘all hands-on deck’ community support to get folks vaccinated as soon as possible.”