White Oak considers hosting vaccination event
By JEFF STITT
jstitt@yourmvi.com
White Oak borough manager John Palyo said the borough has received a number of inquires from residents who are eager to be vaccinated for COVID-19.
Councilwoman Julie Opferman, a nurse at UPMC McKeesport, said she would like to reach out to health care colleagues to see if a vaccination event could be held in White Oak.
“Would anybody be interested if I looked into using the borough building as a site to offer our residents that fall into the certain categories to get the COVID vaccine?” Opferman asked council. “I mean, I don’t even know if it’s possible, but if I reach out to some of my contacts to see if that’s something we could offer our residents.”
Palyo said a “fair” amount of residents have called to ask for the service.
“Unfortunately right now it’s like the state Department of Health is coordinating that and we’re not in the loop,” Palyo said.
He said White Oak EMS crews have been certified for several years to administer flu shots to area residents.
“They’ve actually sent several of their members to be trained to administer the COVID-19 vaccination. However, they are not in the loop right now to be a distribution organization or anything like that,” he said, adding that EMS crews are “ slightly disheartened because they’re like you shouldn’t have went to this training and wasted our time.”
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