SLO County distributes first doses of COVID vaccine to firefighter, doctors and nurses
The first batches of San Luis Obispo County emergency and health care workers received the coronavirus vaccine on Thursday and Friday, about nine months after the county confirmed its initial COVID-19 case.
On Friday, in the side parking lot of the Public Health Department, a group of 20 to 30 masked people watched as the San Luis Obispo County Public Health Department administered its first five vaccines.
“Isn’t this an exciting moment or what?” said Dr. Penny Borenstein, county public health officer. “It is for me and for all of our laboratory personnel who actually worked in this facility tirelessly for the last 10 months.”
“We also have members of our medical and health team with us here today, and I think we are among the most excited people in the county to see this moment having arrived,” she added.
Alec Flatos, a fire engineer and paramedic for the SLO City Fire Department, was the first firefighter in SLO County to be vaccinated; he was also the first person to have been administered the vaccine by the SLO County Public Health Department.
“It’s been a very long year for all of the EMS world,” Flatos said prior to his vaccination. “I’ve been involved in the fire service 18 years in this county and we’ve never come across anything like this ... Not only am I going to be able to better protect our community with this vaccine, I’ll be able to better protect my family, my loved ones.”
Four other first responders — Marla Howard, a hemodialysis nurse at DaVita Dialysis Centers; Dr. Matthew Williams, an emergency room doctor at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center; Jennifer O’Connor, an emergency department nurse at French Hospital Medical Center; and Dr. Daisy Llano, medical director for the SLO County Psychiatric Health Facility — also received the vaccine from the county Friday.
“This is one of the more hopeful days we’ve had in a long time,” Williams said post vaccination.
Borenstein confirmed at a news conference Friday that the county has received 1,950 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine.
About 200 of those doses have been distributed to local hospital partners who began vaccinating some of their critical staff Thursday, Borenstein said.
A second allotment of Pfizer-BioNtech doses was expected to arrive as soon as next week, along with 3,600 doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine.
French Hospital Medical Center in San Luis Obispo, Arroyo Grande Community Hospital in Arroyo Grande and Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria, as well as Cottage Health locations in Santa Barbara, began vaccinating some of their most at-risk healthcare workers Thursday, Noozhawk reported.
“While we understand that vaccine distribution will be a process, today we are one step closer to a safer future,” Dignity Health infectious disease specialist Dr. Trees Ritter said in a news release Thursday.
Vaccine distribution in San Luis Obispo County will happen over the course of months, not weeks, Borenstein said.
The first rounds of the vaccine will be administered to the highest-risk health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, then the vaccine will be distributed to other healthcare workers and essential workers in different sectors, Borenstein said.
Widespread vaccination for the general public will come after that.
This story was originally published December 18, 2020 at 2:22 PM.
