Butler man leads D.C. vaccination site with FEMA
As of Wednesday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a total of 117,647,439 Americans had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, or 35.4% of the country's population.
Helping to drive those numbers is Dave Zarnick Jr., a native of Butler Township who is site manager at the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Greenbelt Metro Community Vaccination Center in Prince George's County, Maryland.
Set up in a parking lot northeast of Washington, D.C., Zarnick's site began running April 7 with the goal of administering 3,000 vaccines a day.Zarnick said the center had administered more than 80,000 Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines since it became operational April 7.“We're expected to administer the 100,000th vaccination later this week,” said Zarnick.He said his job is to get all the disparate entities that make up the vaccination center — active duty Air Force personnel, Maryland Emergency Management Agency personnel, employees of the federal departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services and volunteers from local nonprofit groups — are coordinated to complete the task.“We ensure coordination. It's a unified command. I sit next to an Army general and Maryland Emergency Management Agency representative. We all work together to decide the objectives for the day,” he said. “It's a collaboration among all parties to make sure every citizen gets a vaccine.”The Greenbelt center works out of four industrial-size tents set up next to a Metro rail station.One tent serves as the screening and vaccination area, another as an observation area to make sure no recipients have an adverse reaction, a third tent serves as a staff break room and the fourth holds a pharmacy and medical supplies. Heating and air conditioning are provided by on-site generators.The location next to a rail station ensures people can reach the site by rail, car and bus.Zarnick said the center runs eight hours per day, seven days a week. And its staggered hours — 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays, noon to 8 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays — are meant to accommodate everyone's work schedule. The center accepts both appointments and walk-ins.Zarnick said the site is due to close June 1. Therefore, Pfizer vaccines are now only administered to people who are due for their second vaccination.New patients, which include those ages 18 and above, will get the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccination.After the center closes, he plans to come back to Butler County to visit his parents, Dave and Judy Zarnick.“I hear there's a new Eat'n Park in town,” he said. “I'll stop by the Butler Township Fire Department and see some friends.”“I went to school for finance, and after getting a finance degree, I became active in the fire department,” he said. “After I went back to school and got a homeland security degree, I worked for the state emergency management agency in Harrisburg for six years before joining FEMA.”Zarnick worked in the Maryland Emergency Management Agency in logistics planning, getting personnel, assets and equipment to where they were needed in an emergency.This experience came in handy when it came time to locate and set up the vaccination center.“The state and FEMA dialogued where to place the site. Once that had been determined, it took 96 hours to have an agreement and lease for the facility,” he said.“We trained for a day, and the next day we were vaccinating citizens,” he said.After his visit to Butler County, Zarnick said he will go back to see what Maryland needs to keep its vaccination effort rolling.“We want to assure every citizen who wants a vaccine will get one. We will leave no arm behind,” he said.“It's been a truly humbling experience to work with all these people,” he said.
