UMMS students bring COVID-19 vaccine to underserved downtown Worcester By Bryan Goodchild and Susan E.W. Spencer
UMass Medical School Communications April 20, 2021
Nine UMass Medical School student volunteers administered COVID-19 vaccinations to the community on Monday, April 19, at the YWCA Central Massachusetts in downtown Worcester. The mobile clinic, which delivered roughly 300 doses of the Moderna vaccine, was one of scores so far deploying trained health care personnel as well as nonclinical volunteers in the Vaccine Corps, a program organized by UMass Medical School’s Commonwealth Medicine to bring COVID-19 vaccinations to where people need them the most. The event itself was organized by the Worcester Department of Health and Human Services.
The lobby of the emergency homeless shelter in the old Ascension Church in Worcester known as Hotel Grace turned into a makeshift clinic Tuesday morning. Shelter guests sat behind temporary curtains, answered medical history questions and rolled up their sleeves to receive vaccines against the coronavirus.
Homeless shelters are among the congregate care settings where the vaccinations are being rolled out this week.
UMass Medical School student Timothy Winn prepares doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at the Hotel Grace homeless shelter in Worcester. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Steven Fontaine, 48, has been staying at Hotel Grace for two weeks and wanted to get the vaccine at his first chance.