SAN ANTONIO – The City of San Antonio and the Spurs Sports & Entertainment will partner for two COVID-19 vaccination drives amid a push for more arm jabs.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg on Wednesday morning announced that the first will take place at the AT&T Center on July 10, which will be dubbed Vaccine Day in San Antonio.
“This is a good opportunity to get vaccinated and show your team spirit,” he said in a news conference at the arena.
The event will include the Spurs food truck and merchandise giveaways.
The second drive will take place on July 17 at Toyota Field, the home of the San Antonio FC.
Those who get inoculations at the events will receive a free ticket to an SAFC game and have a chance to win a 10-game pack to the Spurs.
Nirenberg also reported that the seven-day rolling average of new virus infections has dipped below 100 for “the first time in quite a while.”
The positivity rate is now at 3.8%, he said, citing a drop in the demand for testing. The number of patients who are in the hospital has remained at about 120, stagnant from the previous report.
Assistant City Manager Dr. Colleen Bridger said about 20% of new infections tested for genotype came back positive for the Delta variant, which the Word Health Organization calls one of the “most transmissible” variants so far. That rate is on par with the rest of the country, she said.
Due to the surge in the Delta variant, WHO has encouraged people, even those fully vaccinated, to continue to wear face coverings.
It is unclear if the variant leads to more severe illnesses or more deaths, but studies have shown that approved vaccines work against it, according to Dr. Jason Bowling with University Health.
At least 72.6% of the Bexar County population ages 12 and older — or 1.27 million people — have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the most recent city statistics.
About 57.7% of those 12 and older, or 959,040 people, are fully vaccinated.
On Wednesday, Bridger said health officials are “struggling a bit” to encourage people who received their first vaccination to carry out the fill regimen with the second dose. About 100,000 people are due for their second shot but haven’t gotten it yet.
“The best way to protect yourself against the Delta variant is to be fully vaccinated,” she said. “The bottom line is that you must be fully vaccinated in order to get the protection that these vaccines offer.”
More than 226,000 cases have been reported since the start of the pandemic, resulting in 3,547 deaths as of June 22.
District 2 Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez and Bexar County Commissioner for Precinct 4 Tommy Calvert were also in attendance at Wednesday’s news conference.
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