How to Quickly Layout a Vaccination Site at Indoor Basketball Court
Why Utilizing an Indoor Basketball Court is a Feasible Plan?
School Sites Can Provide Low-Temperature Storage Settings
First, current available Covid-19 vaccines need to be stored under low temperatures. In a school setting, the indoor basketball courts are often located adjacent to the cafeteria and kitchen. (See diagram below) the capacity (1) and temperature setting (2) of these commercial refrigerators in the kitchens are qualified to store the vaccine boxes. This setting shown below makes the indoor basketball courts easier to be qualified as POU (Point of Use).
School Sites Can Provide On-Site Parking Spaces …within Walking Distances
Second, those indoor basketball courts have already been embedded in the neighborhood (network) infrastructure systems. Using basketball courts as POU will not only be closed to the school’s enrollment area (aka. catchment area) but also where these teachers reside. Since most authorities plan to safely reopen schools by March, teacher and kids are in the upcoming group to be vaccinated. This school setting would be easier to coordinate with future vaccination needs. On the top of that, school campuses offers ample amount of parking spaces and fixed loading area, this will ease some traffic demand during the peak of appointments.
For example of how many parking spaces will be available for vaccination sites, we can use DC public schools as the estimate example.
Also, schools in suburban areas (such as Montgomery County in Maryland), are often located in the residential zones. The surface parking spaces are estimated based on the zone’s provision. For example, in R60 and R40 zones, the maximum surface parking area are 35% of the area between the lot line and building line. Normally, those schools (in suburban area) could provide approximately a minimum 50 parking spaces.
School Locations Also Benefit Senior Residents
Majority of schools located in the residential neighborhood, this strategic location is also helpful for senior residents who do not live in nursing homes or assistant living.
The Steps to Layout Vaccination Sites
- Locate seats on the marking with red dots.
- Locate seats in the middle between the red dots. (see the placement of blue dots)
- Align the rest of the seats with red dots and blue dots location.
As the illustration shown above, there will be 6 vaccination stations (3 for each side) inside one basketball court. Assuming there will be 8 main appointment slots per site per day, each appointment is sixty minutes. During this one-hour time, each station could cover 15 patients. If everyone could come as scheduled, each basketball court site could administer 720 doses a day.
Municipality like Washington DC, there are 8 wards in the city. Imagine if we select two school type vaccination sites per each ward, there could be maximum 11,520 doses administered per day. (If we do one school per ward, there could be 5,760 doses administered per day.)
For vaccination personnel’s, this type of site could possible use less human resources.
Take Advantage of Existing Marking
Human eyes are more precise to layout at the middle point, and I want to take the most advantage of the existing marking without measuring tools. Therefore it would be feasible for a quick setup.
Pay Attention to Circulation: One Way Traffic
In some cases, there are audience seats at the perimeter of the basketball court. People might think it is not necessary to layout the waiting chairs there. However, we also need to consider patients’ circulation flow. Not all the audience seats would meet the flow direction to match where vaccine stations are.
The coronavirus outbreak is still evolving. To stay informed, check the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as your local health department for updates. If you are interested in reading more references or illustrations in this related article, check out here.
