SLC Community Offers Vaccine Clinic At Annual Event
Aug 3, 2021, 11:22 PM | Updated: Jul 14, 2023, 12:01 pm
SALT LAKE CITY — A community in Salt Lake City offered a free COVID-19 vaccine clinic during its annual night out event.
“We’re not just coming together for a night out,” April Diaz said, “we’re coming together to celebrate being able to be together.”
Diaz is a member of the Westpointe Community Council. She said they were forced to take last year off, and Tuesday’s event was the first time they had come together since the start of the pandemic.
But this year, among the many booths and signs, there was a different kind of service on display: a vaccine clinic from the Salt Lake County Health Department.
Diaz said they agreed it was important to bring the vaccine to the event for people who may have difficulty traveling to get the vaccine or others who have been on the fence and just need an extra push to get the shot, “where otherwise they might not” get it.
“Plus, we want to encourage safety,” Diaz said.
The clinic was just the right time and place for people like Itzel Reyna, 14, to finally decide to move forward with the vaccine.
As she stood there, wearing a mask, looking at the tent, she said she thought, “I need to take it or I should run.”
Reyna has put off getting the shot because she said she was “a little nervous because everything was rushed. COVID was getting crazier and I was like, ‘Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.’”
But on Tuesday, weeks before she begins her high school career at West High School, she decided it was time to roll up her sleeve.
“It’s all scary to me, but I know I have to take the vaccine. I know nothing’s going to happen and I’m going to be safer that way,” she said.
The vaccine clinic at Westpointe Park was one of two free vaccine clinics in Salt Lake City on Tuesday. The other was at the Pioneer Salt Lake City Police precinct.