Cross Insurance Center named COVID-19 community vaccination center for Bangor region
BANGOR — In an effort to get people vaccinated faster and more efficiently, beginning Feb. 2, Northern Light Health will offer community vaccinations for those 70 and over at the Cross Insurance Center. We started vaccinating this age group at various smaller vaccination sites across the state on Jan. 23 as a temporary solution while we worked to establish the Cross Insurance Center site.
“The smaller sites were a good stop gap measure to get shots into people’s arms as quickly as possible to stop the spread of this deadly virus,” explains Matt Marston, PharmD, associate vice president, Northern Light Pharmacy. “As vaccine shipments increase in the coming weeks and months, the Cross Insurance Center site will allow Northern Light Health to be well positioned to assist in the statewide vaccination effort.”
Establishing a mass vaccination site during an unprecedented global pandemic has required substantial planning and coordination within the Northern Light Health system, as well as with state and local governments. The Cross Insurance Center vaccination center will begin with a soft launch Tuesday. The goal is to vaccinate 900 on Tuesday and an additional 900 on Thursday to start. The mass vaccination site will include more than 40 fully staffed vaccination stations when it is operating at full capacity.
As with the smaller sites, people will need to register ahead of time to receive a vaccination appointment. Community members over the age of 70 can currently register either online at covid.northernlighthealth.org/publicvaccine or through our call center hotline, 207-204-8551.
New appointments are released each Monday but can be updated throughout the week if more vaccines are available. We remind people to show up no more than 10 minutes prior to their scheduled time to reduce the potential for long lines outside the facility, especially during these colder winter months. We are currently experiencing extremely high volume to both our registration website and call center. We thank the community in advance for their patience as we work to get all community members registered for vaccinations in an efficient and effective manner.