AM 890 and kbbi.org: Serving the Kenai Peninsula
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Covid Update: Vaccination clinic a success; date of next one remains unknown

KBBI

By all accounts, the first coronavirus inoculation for the general public in Homer, organized by the city’s Unified Command last Friday and Saturday, was a great success.
    South Peninsula Hospital’s Derotha Ferraro:
    “Wow. It went far better than I could have dreamt,” Ferraro said. “It just was pretty much (a) seamless flow and experience for both those getting vaccinated, as well as the more than a hundred folks that were working the event.”
    Ferraro said 700 appointments were made, and 200 people had been put on a waiting list.
    “We were able to actually pull 715 doses. So we were able to call people in off of the waitlist. We actually called some people in off the waitlist on Thursday, before the event even opened because of some double bookings and appointments, and some, a handful of folks actually canceling appointments,” she said. “So we called in at least a dozen off of the waitlist before the event even happened. And then, the last hour of the event, we were able to call in another 19 or 20. So that was great that people on the waitlist actually got called in and, and were able to get vaccinated.”
    Alaska Public Health Nurse Lorne Carroll said he is still working with groups doing contact tracing every day, and is involved in the planning for future vaccination points of distribution.
    “If and when we receive, as a community, additional allotments of vaccine from the state, how will we, as a group of community partners, distribute them as safely and quickly as possible in line with the tiers,” Carroll said. “So by currently it's opened up to folks that are 65 and older. So lots of logistics going on this week for sure.”
    As for when another local vaccination event might be held, Carroll said that won’t be known until the state clues them in.
    “We need a couple pieces of information moving forward into the future before I could, or we could answer that question. We would need to know how much vaccine we'll be receiving at the local level. And also we would need to know how the state's allocation committee is going to continue to open up the vaccine,” he said. “Supply and allocation, those are the two things missing before we can answer that question. So stay tuned.”
    Carroll recommended the State of Alaska’s Covid 19 website dashboard for those who wished to dive deeper into vaccination figures.
    “And so as a state, we've received 114,800 doses. And we're a population of 730,000 here in Alaska. And then the dashboard also breaks down from the total number of a lot of vaccines how many have been given as dose number one? And so we're sitting at about 44,000. So 44,000 Alaskans approximately have received their first dose of vaccine. And 11,700, a little bit more than 11,700 completed their vaccine series,” Carroll said. “That's important because the vaccines weren't studied necessarily to prevent the transmission of COVID from one host to the other. They were studied with the aim of decreasing deaths and hospitalizations. However, I do think that vaccinating Alaskans is going to be a key factor in ending the pandemic in the state.”
    Tune into KBBI on Thursday morning for our weekly Covid Brief with host Kathleen Gustafson.

Tags
Local News Nurse Lorne CarrollDerotha FerarroCOVID Update
Related Content