GREENFIELD — Distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine to Franklin County’s first responders is well underway, with 150 doses being administered Friday at the John Zon Community Center.
Frontline workers at hospitals and medical centers, corrections officers at the Franklin County Jail and House of Correction, and nursing home residents and staff members received their initial dose of the vaccine over the past two weeks. Friday’s vaccine clinic marked the first of four days during which police officers, firefighters, paramedics and EMTs could receive their first dose.
“This was an initiative of the city of Greenfield through our Health Department,” said Greenfield Fire Chief Robert Strahan. “Our goal is to get 600 Franklin County first responders completed. … From the Fire Department’s standpoint, it was important for us to make sure our first responders were protected. And we felt that, being the seed of the county, it was important to do the rest of the county as well.”
The remaining days for first responders to receive their first dose of the vaccine is Wednesday at 6 p.m., Thursday at 2 p.m. and Friday at 2 p.m. Each chief or director sent department rosters to Strahan, indicating which members do and do not want to be vaccinated. Each individual must be registered.
Strahan said Greenfield police officers, Greenfield firefighters and AMR (American Medical Response) paramedics would be getting vaccinated at the John Zon Community Center, as well as a number of first responders from every county police, fire and EMS department. He acknowledged a “dramatic” uptick of emergency medical calls in recent weeks where first responders are interacting with and transporting sick, COVID-19-positive patients.
“This will go a long way to protect our first responders,” he said of the vaccine rollout.
Upon arrival to the John Zon Community Center on Pleasant Street, those receiving the vaccine have their temperature taken as part of a health screening, Danielle Letourneau, chief of staff to Mayor Roxann Wedegartner, and Interim Health Director Jennifer Hoffman explained. They are then ushered to a seat to receive the vaccine, and then to a waiting room to make sure they experience no adverse side effects.
“We’ve had a very good day,” clinic worker Lori Solomon said on Friday. “We’ve had nobody have reactions and everybody’s been happy.”
If a person has a medical history of having experienced a reaction to any past vaccinations, they are asked to stay for up to 30 minutes for monitoring. Those who received the vaccine can use V-safe, a smartphone-based tool, to track how they feel in the days following the vaccination.
“Basically it sends you a text message every day, asks ‘How are you feeling?’ Then you enter everything and it will keep track,” Letourneau explained.
A QR code in the waiting room is scanned to schedule a time to return in February for the second vaccine dose.
Volunteers from AMR, the Franklin County Medical Reserve Corps, Baystate Franklin Medical Center and other local organizations helped operate the first responder clinic and administer the vaccinations. In addition to the eight or so vaccinators, other non-medical volunteers helped with health checks at the door, and monitored those in the waiting room.
Aside from the John Zon Community Center, first responders may also obtain a vaccine through similar programs at the Community Health Center of Franklin County or the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Zack DeLuca can be reached at zdeluca@recorder.com or 413-930-4579.