By Tyler Greer
UAB News
The University of Alabama at Birmingham announced Friday that it will soon offer three appointment-only COVID-19 vaccination sites in Jefferson County with new locations at Parker High School and the Hoover Met joining the current downtown UAB Hospital-Highlands site as community vaccination locations.
The Highlands drive-through location has been vaccinating UAB patients 75 and older since it launched on Jan. 18 and will also welcome patients from Cooper Green Mercy Health Services. The Hoover Met drive-through location is scheduled to begin vaccinating those 75 and older on Tuesday, Feb. 2. The details on the Parker High School location opening and site logistics will be announced soon.
The Birmingham Times
After nearly four decades under federal supervision for discriminatory hiring practices, Jefferson County today was released from one of the longest serving consent decrees in the country.
In a nine-page order, U.S. District Judge Lynwood Smith terminated a 38-year-old consent decree writing that the county has “demonstrated its ability and commitment to function in compliance with federal law, absent judicial supervision.”
The consent decree, which stemmed from a 1975-era lawsuit that claimed Jefferson County was discriminatory in hiring practices of Blacks and women, was entered on Dec. 29, 1982 and has involved tens of millions in legal fees, five years with a court appointed receivership and two years with a monitor.