By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Wood County Health Department is looking for everyday heroes to help get the bulk of its 130,817 residents vaccinated against COVID-19.
Though the vaccine shipments arriving in the last month haven’t been large, there is an expectation that bigger shipments will be coming soon. And when that happens, the health department wants to be ready to get those vaccines in arms as quickly as possible.
That’s where the everyday heroes come in.
“For us to get out of this by summer, we’ll have to give about 10,000 doses a week,” Wood County Health Commissioner Ben Robison said.
So the health department is looking to sign up as many as 3,000 volunteers to help with the vaccination process. The goal is to find 500 people qualified to give the vaccines, and another 2,500 volunteers to help with the process.
“We anticipate the supply chain will catch up,” Robison said earlier this week. “When we get that, we don’t want to be caught flat-footed.”
Due to the circumstances, the health department can authorize people, such as EMS personnel, to give vaccines. The health department is also working with its community partners – like Wood County Developmental Disabilities, home health agencies and hospice providers – to sign up people qualified to give vaccinations.
“We’re reaching out to all of them,” Robison said. “The more capacity we have, the more we can move doses.”
The other 2,500 volunteers will fill a variety of roles, such as acting as translators, providing traffic control, working registration, relaying clinic supplies, taking phone calls from the public, acting as runners, setting up before vaccination clinics, and providing outreach to communities.
“We may need you,” Robison said. “You are literally saving lives by connecting our most vulnerable to the vaccine.”
Anyone interested in being a vaccine volunteer may sign up at http://woodcountyhealth.org/ep/mrc.html. By signing up with the Medical Reserve Corps, people are covered under the health department’s liability for volunteers.
Most of the vaccine clinics currently being set up are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. But that will change when more vaccines are available.
“We need a big enough pool of volunteers that we can schedule an event when we need to,” Robison said. “We want to be able to offer the things that everyone else is doing, and the things that no one else is doing.”
Public health officials have been told that larger Moderna and Pfizer shipments are expected soon.
“We’ve heard that the vaccines are going to increase,” Robison said.
So he encouraged people to volunteer now – even if they don’t know if they have the skills needed, or even if their availability is slim.
“They may not know how they could be utilized. We will find a way to keep everyone involved,” Robison said. “You may only be available one day a month, but that one day may be when we really need you.”
“We’re not going to get out of this without all of us working together,” Robison said.
