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0000017b-652b-d50a-a3ff-f7efb02e0000KPCW's COVID-19 news coverage for Summit County and Wasatch County, Utah. 0000017b-652b-d50a-a3ff-f7efb02f0000You can also visit the Utah Department of Health, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization websites for additional information.

Utah Recieves First Shipment Of COVID-19 Vaccines

Intermountain Healthcare

Intermountain Healthcare received its first delivery of vaccines to two facilities - Utah Valley Regional Hospital and LDS Hospital. They anticipate that by the end of the week their other facilities should start to receive doses.

Eddie Stenehjem is an Infectious Disease Physician at Intermountain. He said these vaccines bring optimism and hope.

"Today's signals the beginning of the end of this pandemic here in Utah, we now have a new and effective tool to combat this pandemic," Stenehjem said. 

Kristin Dascomb, Intermountain Healthcare medical director of infection prevention for employee health, said they will start vaccinating healthcare workers who are at the highest risk of contracting the virus.

"These would include those who work on our COVID units, our ICU care doctors, nurses, technicians. Those who work on medical units...those who work on our environmental services, and deal with COVID related waste," Dascomb said. 

Intermountain expects to start vaccinating caregivers Wednesday afternoon. Dascomb said they are waiting the extra days to make sure they can administer the vaccines safely.

"We need to have our caregivers sign up for appointments and have them lined up," she said. "As you know the vaccine is only stable for six hours. So we want to make sure we have sequential appointments. And all that all our caregivers are in line before we schedule someone to administer that vaccine."

Health officials are expecting 23,000 doses - not just to Intermountain but across the state - by the end of the week.

After healthcare workers are immunized, residents and staff at long term care facilities are next on the list for the vaccine. Th e general population should expect access to the vaccine anywhere from March to June of 2021.

Jessica joins KPCW as a general assignment reporter and Sunday Weekend Edition host. A Florida native, she graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in English — concentrating in film studies — and journalism. Before moving to Utah, she spent time in Atlanta, GA.
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