News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
COVID vaccines for emergency personnel will begin arriving in the Upper Cumberland over the next several days.
Cookeville Regional CEO Paul Korth said medical center employees have signed up for the optional vaccine. The medical center has set up tiers of staff based on priority to get the vaccine first.
“We don’t know when we’re going to receive ours and those are all controlled by the the FDA on who can receive those vaccines,” Korth said. “All those initial vaccines that will be coming here are for health care providers. The state and the federal government has already specified who can receive those first rounds of vaccines and our first shipment is going to be given to health care providers.”
Korth said he expects the first shipment to be enough to vaccinate less than a third of the medical center staff. Once the vaccine arrives, it will be distributed quickly. Korth said the hospital does not have the cooling facility necessary to store the vaccine. The vaccine shipment in dry ice will last five days.
“We’ve notified our employees, they’ve signed up, they know that once we call them and set them up for for the vaccine and they have to come in, come and get it,” Korth said. “You have five days to use it, so I mean people will be getting it almost immediately, I would imagine.”
Staff who take the vaccine will receive a second vaccination 21 days later.
Putnam County officials said they are expecting vaccines for first responders early next week and have a plan in place to get those workers vaccinated.
