SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – An 86-year-old woman from Utah received a phone call late at night that ended with her receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.
It was a call that Mary Ann Kershisnik did not expect, but she received it with open arms.
“I don’t feel, you know, closed up like many people,” she said. “But it is still very different.”
Kershisnik remained optimistic during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Among my friends, none of us got COVID,” she said. “A lot of people in the neighborhood do, but the older group, which we certainly are, has done well in this regard, so we are very eager to take our photos.
The 86-year-old grandmother’s prayers were answered two weeks ago.
“I was watching KSL News at 10 pm,” said Kershisnik. That was when the phone rang with an unexpected offer that made her run out the door.
It was a call from the Community Nursing Services, which work on a mission providing vaccines for some schools and long-term care facilities.
“Community Nursing Services are involved in the distribution of vaccines by designated health districts, as well as by the state; educators in Salt Lake County, Weber, Morgan. We are also working with state long-term care institutions that are not receiving service through a federal partnership with CVS, ”said Community Nursing Services spokesman Cory Fowlks. “No dose is missed or expired. Every effort is made to ensure that each dose is administered to individuals after masked immunizations. “
And at the end of the day, they had extra vaccines.
“[I think] they were doing a school district. When they finished, they had a vile open with a few doses still there, and that had to be done until 1 am, ”said Kershisnik. “I think there are five left.”
Instead of letting them go to waste, they gave Kershisnik a chance to drive and get the vaccine.
“So we went to get the vaccine at 11 pm,” she said. “I thought it was wonderful. Instead of not using these doses, they would try to find people who would like to take them. We were, we were very happy. “
The Davis and Salt Lake County Department of Health is administering its own doses of COVID-19 vaccine.
Davis County officials said they increased their team to process patients at the Legacy Events Center in Farmington, where patients are “getting in and out of the building” in five minutes.
“We are strategic with our planning at the end of the day to ensure that we don’t have a dose left over. We are discussing the creation of a kind of waiting list, but at the moment we have nothing like this. In addition, we did not have to discard vaccines that were not used before the expiration date, ”said Davis County Health Department spokesman Trevor Warner.
Salt Lake County Health Department officials said their vaccination sites at Mountain America Expo Center and Maverik Center are working well.
County spokesman Nicholas Rupp said that no vaccines have expired and none have been discarded. They have a waiting list for no-show appointments to avoid wasting vaccines.
The Utah Department of Health reports that it has about 95 vaccines that have been discarded across the state. UDOH spokeswoman Charla Haley said, “most were due to broken vials or syringes. Several were administration errors when preparing the dose. “