#DOCK IT VACCINE FULL#
“Since COVID, it’s been going full throttle.” 7:50 a.m. “Typically, this building has held some needles, some syringes and the Ebola stuff,” says Justin Kemp, manager of supply and logistics, looking up at his shelves. Shelves rise to the warehouse ceilings loaded with PPE and other supplies geared to halt the pandemic that has sickened millions worldwide and killed more than 400,000 in the U.S. Instead, inside is the vaccine.Įlsewhere in the Strategic Services Building on the west end of campus, an army of facilities personnel have converted rooms to keep pace with the virus. It might be a mail-order steak dinner or popsicles. It shipped through the night from Kalamazoo, Michigan, by UPS Next Day delivery. “This is definitely the biggest thing that’s hit the dock since I’ve been here.” “A lot of times, we’re getting stuff like mops,” he says. The shipping and receiving supervisor has only worked at Hershey Medical Center for three months. He steps up to the loading dock and passes the white cardboard cube to Nick Loftus, who stoops to take it. The man wears a jacket and a brown UPS ball cap, not a hazmat suit. Shipment arrivesįour days before Christmas, a UPS man walks through a cold morning to a Hershey Medical Center supply building hugging the box. Since then, the hospitals have immunized more than 10,000 of their employees, starting with those most exposed to the virus.Īt Hershey, in the hours between the vaccine’s arrival and McQuaite’s arm, inventory personnel and pharmacy technicians run a gauntlet they’ve never run before, fine-tuning process against time and temperature to ensure the vaccine can start saving lives. The day after Hershey Medical Center received its first doses, Penn State Health Holy Spirit Medical Center received its first box full of vials. Joseph Medical Center received its first 975 doses. Donovan McQuaite, the first employee to receive the vaccine.įour days earlier, Penn State Health St. Hershey Medical Center president, tells Dr. “We were tracking it like a kid tracking their package at Christmas,” Deborah Berini, the Milton S. At Hershey Medical Center, people are holding their breath for what could be the beginning of the end of the pandemic.
One-hundred-thirty-nine Penn State Health patients have died from the disease.
21, 2020, the day the first shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 arrives, Penn State Health’s acute care hospitals have treated and discharged 1,389 people who contracted the illness since the pandemic began. All the hand-washing, masks, personal protective equipment (PPE), challenges both logistical and personal, fears, suffering and sorrow have led to this. It’s the moment for which many have been hoping and praying for nearly a year. Eight hours later, a nurse injects it into the arm of a health care worker, who raises his fist in triumph.
0 kommentar(er)
