WASHINGTON — Vaccination numbers continue to climb across the country and COVID restrictions in many areas across the DC region are dropping.
But for those who have not yet gotten the vaccine, there are lots of spots to get it this weekend.
The best place to find vaccination sites near you is vaccines.gov. The site asks you to enter your zip code and then shows you the vaccination sites nearby. You can also see what type of vaccine each site is offering.
In DC, seven walk-up vaccination sites are open in DC this weekend. Pharmacies, clinics, and healthcare providers are also administering the shot.
Two more pop-up vaccination sites will also be open Saturday in the District, according to a DC press release. One will be at the Pepco Benning Service Center at 3400 Benning Road NE between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Residents 12 and older will be able to get the Pfizer vaccine there. The 9:30 Club at 815 V St. NW is hosting the other site. Between 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., residents will be able to get the one-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine and a free beer.
Free pizza and other goodies were available at other DC vaccination sites Saturday.
On Benning Road NE, Pepco and Mary's Center partnered to host a pop-up vaccination site aimed at increasing access to the vaccine.
"We are in Ward 7," said Pepco spokesperson Ben Armstrong at the site of the pop-up location. "We know Wards 7, 8, and 5 are trailing a little bit behind some of the other wards in the District in terms of the percentage of residents that are getting vaccinated so we wanted to provide this opportunity."
DC "residents who are unable to leave home to get vaccinated can still call 1-855-363-0333 to make an appointment for a free at-home vaccination," according to the release.
Maryland vaccination sites can be found here.
Notably, between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Sunday, people who get vaccinated at the Compare Foods site at 750 Martin Luther King Highway in Hyattsville will get 10% off their grocery bill, according to an email from the Maryland Department of Health.
In Virginia, vaccination sites can be found here.
One of those Virginia sites is Inova Health System's Stonebridge vaccination site in Alexandria.
Tracy Connell, an Inova spokesperson, says Inova has administered at least 415,000 doses of COVID vaccine system-wide since December. At its peak, they were administering about 5,000 doses per day.
In the last few weeks, though, that figure has dropped to about 2,000 per day according to Connell.
Dr. Cleveland Francis, a physician with Inova, says vaccine hesitancy has played a role in that decline.
To address some patient concerns, Dr. Francis helped a group of Inova doctors produce a digital series of answers to common vaccine questions. To make sure the message was as accessible as possible, the group recorded their answers in more than half a dozen languages.
"To treat this hesitance, you have to treat the entire community," said Dr. Francis.
Questions are natural, he says. According to him, the best place for answers is also the most obvious.
"The best thing is your own doctor," said Dr. Francis. "We've vetted this information, we read about this all the time, we are familiar with the CDC, the Virginia Department of Health, and it's a one-on-one discussion with your doctor as you've had with other medical problems in your life."