Young families are main clientele at new vaccine site at San Antonio Center

Preschool-aged children and younger were 100% of the clientele visible during a visit this afternoon at the COVID-19 vaccination site just opened in Mountain View.

Santa Clara County set up the appointment-only clinic, located in the former Joann Fabric store at 435 San Antonio Road, with help from the Los Altos School District, which owns the site.

The county began offering vaccination to children ages 6 months to 4 years as of Tuesday (June 21), and parents at the Mountain View site were able to choose between the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech shots, both of which gained emergency use approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the weekend. 

Local families were predominantly seeking out the Moderna vaccine, although the county’s public information office said it was too soon to determine sweeping parental preference given two days of data. They reported stocking sufficient supplies of both vaccines to continue to offer choice and said they anticipate continuing resupplies allowing for continuing choice.  

Child clients were clearly anticipated at the new county site – coloring sheets were handed out at the entrance, and inflatable animals and coloring stations were set up in the waiting area where patients remain under observation for 15 minutes post-vaccination.

Mountain View’s Community Center hosted a COVID-19 vaccination center for nearly a year and a half before that location closed in May, allowing the community center to resume its other community services in the space. The county’s public information office reported that that location had provided more than 140,000 doses, playing “a critical role in helping make the County of Santa Clara one of the most vaccinated counties in the country.” The new location in the San Antonio Center provides the only county vaccine site north of San Jose’s fairgrounds.