Local nurse shares thoughts on possibly being one of first to get COVID-19 vaccine
California is expected to get 327,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine in the coming weeks.
“The first round of vaccines will go to our frontline healthcare workers who have exposure to COVID positive individuals,” director of public health for Riverside County, Kim Saruwatari told News Channel 3.
Linda Serrano is one of those excited to get the vaccine.
“It’s nice to know that we are prioritized as healthcare workers,” Serrano said.
She’s a registered nurse at Desert Regional Medical Center.
“We actually finished a meeting earlier today with our professional practice committee and the chief nursing officer Scott. He gave us some details and information in regards to the anticipated plan to roll out the vaccine. There still are a lot of details but there are some announcements coming up so it’s exciting for us to know that we have administrators that are ready to roll,” Serrano said.
Serrano also said she’s not going to entirely rely on the vaccine to keep her safe.
“I advise everyone to not be 100 percent dependent on it," she said. "If I were a lucky one to receive it absolutely I would be glad to get it but I’m going to continue with my practice as is and I want to portray that to other people in my community to keep distance, wear your mask, hand wash, don’t participate in large gatherings because these are the simple measures that will help you in the long run,” she said.
Not every healthcare worker will be able to get the vaccine once it gets here.
“In California, there are almost 2.5 million healthcare workers and in Riverside County that number is around 153,000 to 154,000 so we do know that the first allotment of vaccines will not cover all of our general acute care facilities so we’re working with hospitals to look at who are their highest risk individuals,” Saruwatari said.
She said she expects Riverside County to get 14,000 to 15,000 doses of the 327,000 doses in the first round coming to California.
“The technology, the development is super exciting," Serrano said. "When you think about it, the timing, the framing, how organized our country has been with the availability to disperse it; that’s nice, that’s a good feeling for us,” she said.
The FDA is meeting this Thursday and if they approve Pfizer’s vaccine at that point, the County said we could see the vaccine here the following week or week after that.
