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Wake residents crossing county lines to receive COVID-19 vaccine

Over 60,000 people are still on the waitlist to be vaccinated in Wake County alone.

Posted Updated

By
Aaron Thomas
, WRAL reporter
RALEIGH, N.C. — Over 60,000 people are still on the waitlist to be vaccinated in Wake County alone.

Holly Springs resident Athena Steffenhagen said she'd be willing to go the extra mile to get vaccinated.

"I'd probably drive at least five or six hours if I could get it," she explained. "To me, getting vaccinated is just helping to get to normality just a little sooner."

Eager people like Leni Crook, who lives in Garner, are already crossing county lines.

Crook and her husband drove two hours, just outside of Virginia, for their COVID-19 vaccine.

"It didn't matter, wherever that opportunity was -- that's where I was going," said Cook.

Mass vaccination sites have helped boost vaccine rollout. Over 16,000 people got their shot at Charlotte Motor Speedway over the weekend.

So far, Wake County hasn't been able to establish similar clinics.

"The strategy was to always ensure that we had capacity for supply," explained Ryan Jury, the vaccine lead at Wake County Divison of Public Health. "What we've been communicated to is that the state may not be in a position to allocate enough supply to make them sustainable.

Steffenhagen said a local mass vaccination site could help speed up the process of getting shots in arms.

"We pay our taxes. It should be available to people who live in this county," she said.

Don Waddell, the president and general manager of the Carolina Hurricanes, said on behalf of PNC Arena, that the facility is 100 percent open to a mass vaccination clinic but discussions with the county are preliminary right now.

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