Ninety-one Gilmer County educators and staff members have received the COVID-19 vaccine and more are scheduled to do so this week.
The process was set into motion Feb. 25. Gov. Brian Kemp announced the expansion of the criteria to receive the vaccine beginning March 8 to adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities and their caregivers, parents of children with complex medical conditions, all K-12 educators and school staff.
“Once that opened up, we made a plan with the school to get them vaccinated,” said Gilmer County Health Department nurse manager Krystal Sumner. “The school nurses kind of organized it on the school end.”
All 526 staff members of the Gilmer County School System received a survey shortly after Kemp’s announcement. Those who opted to receive the vaccine were given time to complete the proper paperwork and arrived at the vaccination site last Tuesday ready to go.
“Out of 526 employees, we only had 112 that responded that they wanted to be vaccinated,” superintendent Dr. Shanna Downs said. “When it started becoming available, our lead health specialist reached out to Krystal. I sent instructions to those 112 to let them know the plan.
“Then we had multiple staff members reach out and say ‘Oh, I forgot to fill out the survey, and I’m interested now.’ They opened up a second day on the 16th to let them come in. We sent the survey to all staff, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, everybody.”
The two-dose Moderna and single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccines were offered at the clinic, which was also open to Gilmer’s private school educators and staff.
“It went very smoothly,” Sumner said. “We do things like this with a lot of the bigger companies in the county. We do this with flu vaccines so this was something that was very routine for us. Everyone was in and out within 15 or 20 minutes and that included their 15-minute wait period.”
Those who received the Moderna vaccine will wait 28 days before receiving the second dose.
“Everything worked so efficiently, and the health department did an amazing job of getting everyone in there, vaccinating them and getting them out,” Downs said.
“We have had several who have not felt well and even ran fevers after that first dose. That is some of the feedback we have gotten, is that the shot itself is making people feel not well.”
Seventy-five more public and private school staff members signed up to receive their first dose of the vaccine at Tuesday’s press deadline.
“We’re just thrilled that we’ve been able to do this,” Downs said. “We were one of the first districts in our area able to organize and have a clinic and those accolades go to Krystal and her team.”