FRANKFORT, Ky. — Healthcare workers will get the coronavirus vaccine starting Dec. 15.

What You Need To Know

  • Healthcare workers will receive vaccine beginning Dec. 15

  • 11 hospitals across the state will receive doses

  • Pfizer will send more than 12,000 vaccines to Kentucky hospitals

  • 25,000 other doses will be sent to long term care facilities

 

“It is a fairly small amount as compared to healthcare workers across Kentucky, so these are just the first 11 sites that are going to receive them,” Beshear said. “Not everybody could be in this very first grouping.”

The state will send them to 11 hospitals around Kentucky, including three in Louisville and two in Lexington:

  • Mercy Health Lourdes Hospital in Paducah
  • Pikeville Medical Center
  • University of Kentucky Hospital
  • Baptist Health Madisonville
  • Baptist Health Louisville
  • St. Elizabeth Healthcare Edgewood
  • Baptist Health Corbin
  • Baptist Health Lexington
  • Norton Hospital in Louisville
  • Medical Center at Bowling Green
  • University of Louisville Hospital

Every hospital will receive 925 vaccines except University of Kentucky and Norton Hospital, who will receive double that amount.

The hospitals were chosen because they can handle the minimum shipment of the vaccine, and they have the ability to store Pfizer’s vaccine specifically because it requires an extremely low temperature.

“We want a good coverage area in Kentucky so you see we have sites in Western, Eastern, South-Central Kentucky, as well as some of our most populated areas,” Beshear said. “And we also looked at high incidence rate sites.”

Another 25,000 vaccines will be shipped to long-term care facilities on Dec. 15.

The federal government will deliver those through CVS and Walgreens.

“We believe that it is possible and we certainly hope that we can get the 50,000 or so individuals and workers in the most intensive tier of long-term care within the first eight weeks of the program,” Beshear said.

Each dose of the vaccine will be followed by a booster shot that will be sent at a later date.

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