WAUSAU, Wis. —  There’s a sense of history surrounding the the massive COVID-19 vaccination effort.

It’s something not lost on Zoua Yang, a CVS pharmacy manager in the Wausau area.

What You Need To Know

  • CVS pharmacy manager Zoua Yang helped set up and run long-term care facility vaccinations in northern Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michigan.
  •  The effort included more than 500 clinics
  • Yang said it’s import people see Asian-Americans are part of the fight against COVID-19​

She was part of a huge CVS and Centers for Disease Control effort to vaccinate thousands of residents and staff at long-term care facilities in northern Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michigan.

“We definitely knew it was going into history and a lot of pharmacists and the people who were in were very excited about it,” Yang said. “They knew this was going to be something that may be a once in a lifetime experience.”

Her job was to get the clinics up and running: from hiring and training staff to coordinating the best ways to get vaccines to more than 500 clinics spread far apart. It was a lot of work, and a lot of unknowns early on.

But the job got done, and Yang was able to see the results first hand.

 “It was great to be able to organize the clinics and to be able to go into the clinics and see families finally unity after months of not being able to see each other,” she said. “People were crying, tears, there was just so much emotion.”

A first-generation Hmong-American, he family moved to the United States from Laos after the Vietnam War, where he family fought along side and cooperated with American forces. She grew up in Wausau.

An uptick in anti-Asian sentiment has been one of the byproducts of the pandemic. It’s something Yang said she, and her family have experienced first-hand. It was there when she was growing up, as an adult and, more recently, during the pandemic.

It’s part of the reason she’s sharing her story.

“I want my voice to be heard because there is so much anti-Asian hate and it is really sad it’s going on in the community. But there are so many of us with Asian backgrounds who are trying to help the community,” Yang said. “We want to the community better, we want it to be back to normal and we will play our role in this.”

Connie Gerber works with Yang as a pharmacy technician. She wasn’t surprised when Yang was tapped to head up the regional CVS vaccination effort.

“That is Zoua all the way,” Gerber said. “She is 100% professional and when she told us bout that I just knew she’d be perfect for the job.”

Yang has also been helping closer to home, acting as a medical resource to Wausau’s Hmong community when it comes to vaccination — including members of her own family.

“Just knowing the language and being able to communicate with other health care providers and the Hmong community about the vaccine and educating them about the risks and benefits — and helping them truly understand the vaccine — I think that was the biggest impact,” she said.