St. Mary’s Hospital starts vaccinating staff against coronavirus
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
St. Mary's Hospital in Jefferson City administered its first shots of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine Tuesday afternoon.
SSM Health, which owns the hospital, accepted its first shipment of the vaccine at 10:30 a.m., inviting reporters and photographers inside to see employees unpack the doses.
Alloch Burton, the Clinical Pharmacy Manager at St. Mary's, said they have extra space in the ultra cold freezer storage if more requests for vaccines are made.
"We have the ability to store more vaccines than we received that's just kind of the nature of the freezer," he said. "We feel it's our duty to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible."
St. Mary's later allowed media to record the first hospital workers getting their coronavirus shots.
Watch St. Mary's give its first coronavirus vaccine shots in the player below.
Alyssa Neitzer, an emergency services employee for St. Mary's, said she was honored to be one of the first employees to take the coronavirus vaccine.
"I was extremely excited about receiving the COVID-19 vaccine today and I felt so honored because of all of the health care workers across the nation across the world who have not received the vaccine, so I feel unbelievably humbled today," she said.
Neitzer said she was not nervous to take the vaccine and hopes others take it as soon as it becomes available.
"I felt this vaccine is safe, COVID-19 can be an extremely dangerous disease for many people we have seen an extreme amount of suffering and death and I feel completely safe having taken this vaccine today," she said.
Pfizer's vaccine won approval from federal regulators on Friday and the first doses arrived in Missouri on Monday afternoon. Hospital systems say they're ready to begin giving vaccinations this week.
St. Mary's will begin vaccinating staff members on Tuesday with the 4,875 doses received in the first shipment. The hospital has a second media event planned at which workers will be vaccinated.
More doses will arrive weekly. St. Mary's officials say they hope to have the first shipment administered in 10 days.
Nursing home residents and workers and health-care workers will be the first to receive the vaccine in an attempt to protect the most vulnerable and exposed members of the population.
The Pfizer vaccine is the only one approved for use right now. However, federal data released Tuesday showed promising results for a vaccine made by Moderna. An FDA committee will meet Thursday to review safety data related to Moderna's vaccine.
BJC HealthCare spokeswoman Lauren High said Monday morning that BJC would get its first vaccine doses Monday or Tuesday. The company will receive about 9,750 doses and start administering them "by the end of the week," she said.
Dr. Robin Blount, vice president and chief medical officer at Boone Hospital, said Boone will begin vaccinating staff this week.
MU Health was set to receive its first doses of the Pfizer vaccine Tuesday evening.
Truman Memorial Veterans' Hospital in Columbia said it starting administering doses of the vaccine Tuesday. The first patient to receive a dose was a 99-year-old World War II veteran.
