Nashville to give 10,000 vaccine doses in one day at Nissan Stadium

Nashville intends to vaccinate 10,000 residents in one day at a drive-thru event at Nissan Stadium on March 20 – the largest mass vaccination drive announced in Tennessee so far.

The event will exclusively use the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, so participants won’t be required to seek a second dose elsewhere, according to the Nashville Metro Public Health Department. The event will last from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. in stadium parking lots A through D, according to a news release.

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Registration begins 10 a.m. Wednesday at covid19.nashville.gov. Eligibility is limited to people age 65 or above in or vaccination phases 1A, 1B or 1C, according to a news release announcing the event. There is no sign-up process available by phone.

To keep lines as short as possible, those who sign up for the Nissan Stadium event are encouraged to come to the event with multiple registrants in a single car, but not more people than the number of doors on the vehicle.

“The March 20th mass vaccination event at Nissan Stadium will be an inflection point in Nashville’s fight against the pandemic,” said Mayor John Cooper in the news release. “In a single day, Public Health plans on vaccinating 10,000 of our residents to move our city closer to herd immunity and a return to normal life.”

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The Nissan Stadium event is likely to be the first of multiple large-scale vaccination events held as vaccine supplies increase across the state. Nashville officials expect the stadium event to be the first of several “large-scale drive-thru events” in the coming weeks, and state health officials have considered similar events at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge and Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon.

Tennessee Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey said Tuesday the state is still planning mass vaccination drives of its own, albeit at a “smaller scale” than Nashville, in addition to wider efforts to improve vaccine access in rural areas, possibly by expanding appointments into evenings and weekends.

“We are frequently brainstorming in the state on how we can simultaneously deliver large number of vaccine but yet not erect these artificial barriers for people who live out in rural geography,” Piercey said, adding a moment later: “You will see a mix of these mass events and a beefing up of capacity in more decentralized locations throughout the state.”

The vaccine is now available to more Tennesseans than ever before. Nearly all of the state has transitioned to vaccination phase “1C,” opening eligibility to people with serious medical conditions, including some common conditions like obesity or hypertension.

Vaccine supplies have steadily increased over the past two months as drugmakers increased production and federal and state officials streamlined distribution. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine, authorized for use earlier this month, makes mass vaccination events more plausible because it does not require a follow-up dose.

Tennessee is set to receive about 200,000 vaccine doses this week, and supplies are expected to dramatically increase toward the end of March, according to the state health department.

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The vaccination event on March 20th will further solidify Nissan Stadium, home to the Tennessee Titans, as a cornerstone venue for Nashville’s coronavirus response. The city has used a parking lot near the stadium as a drive-thru testing site for about a year, and the stadium was previously used as a collection site for donated protective equipment for health care workers.

“Nissan Stadium takes great pride in serving the Nashville community beyond entertaining fans on game days,” said Adolpho Birch, a Titans senior vice president, in a news release. “Using the stadium to provide essential services to the community is a responsibility we take very seriously, and we’re proud to join other teams stadiums across the NFL in supporting our country’s vaccination effort.”

Brett Kelman is the health care reporter for The Tennessean. He can be reached at 615-259-8287 or at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @brettkelman.

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