They all had their reasons to go to Fair Park.
The hotel housekeeping manager wanted to protect her family — especially her elderly mother. The pharmacist yearned to see her patients smile again. The out-of-work technology saleswoman — a natural introvert — sought to make her more sociable wife happy.
For six months, hundreds of thousands of North Texans streamed into Dallas County’s COVID-19 vaccine hub for a shot of hope, a dose of normalcy and a chance to make their communities safe again.
When the county shutters its megasite in South Dallas on Saturday, almost 500,000 doses of the emergency-approved vaccines are expected to have been administered there — an astonishing feat given the site faced complications during its initial months.
In fact, the site that initially struggled with long lines and a corrupted reservation system eventually became one of the highest functioning vaccine hubs in the nation. More than 12,000 doses could be administered in a day with the help of hundreds of volunteers, county staff, local commercial pharmacists, and military and federal government employees. For comparison, another federally supported site in Houston, the state’s largest city, hit its peak at about 7,000 shots per day. And so far, it has used fewer than 400,000 vaccines.
Dallas County — after initially missing the mark — has also largely made good on its promise to ensure those vaccinated at Fair Park match the broader community. As of Friday, nearly 44% of those immunized since early February were Latino and 15% were Black. Latinos make up about 41% of Dallas County’s 2.6 million population and Blacks account for 22%.
As demand for the vaccine in Dallas County has waned — mirroring the rest of the nation — and the supply has shot up, the county health department and its private contractor have dramatically scaled down the Fair Park operation from five days a week to one. And while several megasites remained open across the country, including Houston’s, Fair Park was one of the few remaining in North Texas.
And yet new COVID-19 cases are rising as the delta variant rips across the U.S. And only slightly more than half of the eligible county residents are fully immunized, according to state data.
County commissioners are mounting pressure on the health department to stay nimble and have a plan if booster shots are needed or another coronavirus variant is resistant to current vaccines.
“I think if you look back, we have come a long way,” said Commissioner Elba Garcia, a Democrat who represents western Dallas County. “But there is still a lot of work to do. We have to continue to think outside the box.
“There is still some hesitancy out there.”
In the lead-up to the Fair Park vaccine site’s closure, The Dallas Morning News asked staff, volunteers and patients to reflect on what it meant to be part of the historic operation.
They knew the moment was bigger than any one of them.
“We were on a mission,” said Michelle Salazar, who volunteered every day for about three months. “Together.”
‘It saves lives’
The panic was palpable for Alejandra Vila the morning of Jan. 11 when the Fair Park vaccine site opened.
Masked and bundled in multiple layers to protect herself from both the coronavirus and the near-freezing temperatures, Vila escorted her 89-year-old mother to the front of the line for a vaccine.
“We were all afraid,” the hotel housekeeping manager said. “We didn’t want to get close to each other. We just wanted to get it over with.”
Waiting to see if the vaccine was safe was not an option. Vila had heard too many stories of people dying of COVID-19 alone and in pain from a friend who worked at a hospital. Any possible side effect, she reasoned, was a better alternative.
“I didn’t want to see my mom suffer in the hospital,” she said. “I didn’t want to end up in the hospital.”
The rest of Vila’s family followed suit. Her husband, Jorge De León, was also immunized at Fair Park after the site transitioned from a walkup to a drive-through operation in late February. Fearing he would be late for work if he were trapped in an endless line of cars, he arrived at 6:30 a.m. to secure a spot near the front of the line.
He got his shot and was on his way to work by 9, an hour after the site opened.
Several months later, Vila and De León — both immigrants — consider themselves lucky. If they lived in their native countries, Costa Rica and Mexico, respectively, neither would be vaccinated today because the shots are not as widely available as they are in this country.
Vila grows furious thinking about U.S. residents who have an ample supply of vaccines yet remain vulnerable to the virus because they choose not to get protected.
“I just don’t understand why people don’t see the big picture,” she said.
The medicine has made a significate difference in their lives.
Earlier this month, despite continuing to vigilantly protect themselves, De León was diagnosed with COVID-19. A diabetic, he is certain if he were not vaccinated he would be in the hospital fighting for his life.
Diabetics were among the most at-risk for a severe case of COVID-19.
“We know the vaccine hasn’t been fully approved. But it’s the only tool we have to not get sick,” said De León, referring to the emergency federal approval. “I’m proof it saves lives.”
‘A steady hand’
As the new year began, Mike Luckock, a healthy, 57-year-old yoga studio owner, convinced himself that it would be several months before he would be eligible for the vaccine.
The initial rollout had been slow, and it was clear the elderly and sick would be prioritized first. Then his neighbor told him that if he volunteered at a local vaccine site, there was a good chance he’d get his shot.
Shortly after Fair Park opened in mid-January, he called Dallas County and asked to be put to work. The following Friday, his shift started at 7:15 a.m. and he didn’t leave the fairgrounds until nearly 8 that night.
The promise of quick access to the vaccine attracted hundreds of volunteers such as Luckock. Most didn’t stick around after they clocked the required number of hours to get the shot. Luckock was different.
The yoga studio owner decided to turn over his business — which had been temporarily closed early in the pandemic — to his partner and staff, freeing him to volunteer at Fair Park nearly every day for four months.
“They needed a steady hand,” he said.
Luckock helped run the prescreen process, ensuring everyone in line had the proper forms and appointments, if necessary. Texans who neither wanted to wait nor volunteer found other creative ways to jump the line — notoriously hijacking the county’s reservation system by passing around weblinks and QR codes that were meant for one-time use to book appointments. Luckock says he was one of the volunteers who first discovered the problem.
“The stuff we were dealing with out there,” he said, referring to the more animated Texans who stopped by for a shot. “The whole process was crazy.”
Luckock faced his fair share of verbal abuse from incensed residents. But most days were not terrible. Take for instance the day he told a woman in line she qualified for the shot after she spent most of the morning thinking she would not be eligible.
“She just broke down,” he said.
“Even though some people don’t appreciate anything we’ve done, the majority appreciate everything we did.”
‘One step closer’
Elizabeth Hoang decided to become a pharmacist after seeing medicine save her diabetic grandmother’s life. The New Orleans native joined Kroger pharmacies in 2014 after graduating pharmacy school, most recently floating among stores in Fort Worth and Flower Mound.
Like so many people, the pandemic snuck up on Hoang. But her immediate family faced a unique challenge: her husband, twin sister, brother- and sister-in-law are all Kroger pharmacists. Protecting themselves while helping their customers became the source of daily tension.
When it became apparent that vaccines were on the way late last year, private pharmacies such as Kroger were expected to lead the rollout in Texas. However, the state abruptly changed course, focusing instead on government- and hospital-run vaccine sites such as Fair Park that could inoculate several hundred a day.
Kroger pharmacists wouldn’t sit on the sidelines. To help relieve firefighters, nurses and other first responders who had been vaccinating the public at these government sites, Kroger assembled teams to pitch in.
Hoang and her entire family were dispatched to Fair Park for about three months.
The days were grueling but went by fast, Hoang said. Like most workers, Hoang and other pharmacists rotated among different positions. Some days she would vaccinate people, other days she would check paperwork.
When she met people who were nervous about getting the shot, she reminded them why they were there.
“You’re one step closer to taking the mask off,” she would say.
Today, Hoang is back in Kroger stores, happy to see her patients’ smiles again. She is also pregnant with her first child.
What will she tell her daughter one day in the distant future when she learns about the pandemic?
“Her mom made a difference and she witnessed how the community came together to control COVID.”
‘I didn’t want anything’
Michelle Salazar was perfectly fine working her technology sales job from home during the pandemic.
But she was let go in January after the company where she had worked for 13 years was acquired and the entire sales team was eliminated.
“It was just kind of out of the blue,” she said. “All of a sudden your life has changed.”
While Salazar wondered what was next for her, her wife was eager to socialize again after months of being in lockdown. So, Salazar volunteered at Fair Park to get the vaccine early. Terrified of the virus, she opted to spend her first day outside driving those who couldn’t walk from the parking lot to the Tower building at Fair Park where shots were being administered.
For an amateur golfer with a membership to Dallas’ Brookhaven Country Club, it seemed like an ideal fit.
Without a job, Salazar kept showing up at Fair Park. As she shuttled the elderly between the parking lot and the vaccine site, she began running errands for other staff and getting to know all the different parts of the operation.
When it was clear she wasn’t going anywhere, Salazar received a new assignment. She began ushering the vaccine from mobile units to the drive-through lanes that opened after February’s winter storm. Eventually, she became a “pit boss” and managed a set of lanes — assigning roles, ensuring the correct number of doses were on hand, ensuring data was being entered correctly. She always tried to keep any problems “outside the tent” to minimize traffic holdups.
When the federal government arrived in February to increase the number of doses available to North Texans, Salazar worked alongside the Coast Guard and Army. Unaware of military rank, she befriended and occasionally offered advice to the officer in charge, Lt. Col. Nicholas Talbot.
“I didn’t realize I was actually talking to a colonel,” she said.
At least 10 people a day told Salazar to “go to hell,” she said. Her own friends trashed Fair Park as it struggled during those early days. She tried not to take it personally. The relief on people’s faces after getting the shot and knowing that she was reconnecting them with their families sustained her.
“Fair Park helped me,” Salazar said, holding back tears. “Where I was with COVID, with my job loss — to be able to do something for other people — was the most amazing period of my life. It was just the most amazing time of my life to be able to give myself to help others.
“I didn’t want anything. I didn’t need anything. I just wanted to help.”
Where to get a shot after Saturday
If you can’t make it to Fair Park and want a vaccine from the Dallas County health department, you can schedule an appointment for a shot at the health department’s Jefferson-Oak Cliff clinic by calling 972-692-2780.
The department will also host a pop-up clinic July 31 at Owenwood Farm and Neighbor Space at 1451 John West Road.
Timeline of Fair Park site
Jan. 4, 2021: Nearly 50,000 people registered for a vaccine before the Fair Park site opened.
Jan. 11: Dallas County opens its vaccine site at Fair Park in the Tower building. While the site had been selected with the hopes of vaccinating historically underserved Hispanic and Black communities, the crowd was predominately white. It was later discovered that the county’s reservation system was unknowingly hijacked after Dallas City Council members forwarded links to constituents. It was initially only open to those who were health care workers, 65 and older or high risk.
Jan. 20: State health officials threatened to cut off the county’s vaccine supply if commissioners, eager to course-correct the site’s early failures in reaching Hispanic and Black communities, limited who could get a shot at Fair Park to residents of high-risk ZIP codes. Commissioners ultimately backed off their proposal.
Jan. 27: Commissioners approved a series of changes, including purchasing new appointment software to improve the Fair Park site.
Feb. 10: The Biden administration announced it would help Dallas, Tarrant and Harris counties with vaccine distribution, sending federal and military officials and additional vaccines.
Feb. 24: Military and federal officials joined Dallas County in opening up the Fair Park drive-through site. Federal officers focused on first doses while county officials focused on second doses, especially for people who were delayed by the winter storm that shut down the state for nearly a week.
March 31: Dallas County distributed its 250,000th vaccine. Earlier in the week, 12,000 people were inoculated at the site in one day.
April 14: As demand began to slow down, Dallas County ended the appointment requirement at Fair Park.
April 20: With the federal support expected to leave in May, the county approved a $30 million contract with a private company to take over vaccine efforts at Fair Park and elsewhere.
May 11: Dallas County and the school district announced an agreement to bus students to Fair Park to be vaccinated.
June 21: Dallas County announced it would close its Fair Park vaccine site July 17.
