It’s not a moment in history you’d want to remember all that often, but history was made today,” Chad Meador sighed as he bared his bicep for the first injection of the COVID-19 given by staff at the Summers County Health Department Thursday.
The Summers County Health Department Administrator has led the community’s charge against the pervasive virus began and the country locked down in March. He and his staff have worked 7 days a week tracking COVID-19 cases, adhering to precautionary guidelines, and setting examples for behavior to protect others. Thursday Meador, recently named the Spirit of Hinton, bravely stepped up to become the first recipient in the county to receive the Pfizer vaccine through the county health department. He promised to share his experience with the vaccine with The Hinton News and the community.
It may be weeks or months before enough vaccine arrives to inoculate everyone in Summers County. Meador shared that he and Health Department Medical Director Dr. Steve Richman received just three vials of the recently approved vaccination.
“Each vial must be kept at 70 degrees below zero, and each vial contains 5 vaccines,” Meadors disclosed.
The first will be administered to frontline health care workers.
While a nation awaits the manufacture of sufficient amounts of vaccine to cover everyone in the United States, Meador expressed confidence more will be on its way to Summers County soon, following protocol and distributed to health departments through the West Virginia National Guard through the School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lewisburg. This specific version of the vaccine requires a follow-up injection in three weeks.
Meantime, vaccines have also been administered to nursing homes, including here in Summers County.
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