Dr. Prater gets first staff shot

The back hall at Stephens Memorial Hospital was abuzz with activity Thursday morning, Dec. 31, with the spector of 10 shots of the Moderna Vaccine allotted to 10 lucky staff members led by Dr. William E. Prater, who were all lined up for their shot.

Julie Glueck Honea was the one who transported the vaccine originally from Brookshires in Cisco, which had gotten 100 shots to disburse. She ended up going to Eastland, Rising Star and Breckenridge to make sure all the vaccine was used. She was the one giving the shots at SMH.

Chris Curtis, Director of Business Development, had followed through with designating who was to get the 10 shots, which included Martha Martinez, who is a pharmacy assistant at SMH, and Karen Guynes and Tammy Berkley, who were both from the Walker Says Unit.

The Moderna Vaccine was distributed through the office of Hunter Pharmacy Services, which supplies SMH with medicine to the SMH Pharmacy. Head of their company is also President of the Pharmacy Services in this region and we can all thank him for being on top of the disbursement of the vaccine.

However, everyone is scratching their heads about how the disbursement is handled locally. Information was given that 100 doses of the Moderna Vaccine had been sent to Throckmorton County, Eastland County and Brookshires at Cisco also had received 100 of the vaccine. Where is Stephens County in that mix? Are we on the list for next week? No one seemed to be able to answer that question.

Dr. Prater was asked, “What he had learned over the last several months about handling COVID cases? “We found out what didn’t work and learned there is not much to treat the early stages of the virus. All we can hope for is the mass vaccine shots to obtain the ‘Herd Immunity’ they all talk about.”

The booster shot for the Moderna Vaccine is in a month and then a person should be 90% safe from getting COVID or minimize the virus to a light case, according to medical personnel.

The Moderna Vaccine is much easier to handle which includes being refrigerated in a refrigerator, take out to get to room temperature and then use within 10 hours. This also does not require diluting, but is ready to go immediately from vial to needle and into the arm.