Mississippi healthcare officials receive first doses of COVID-19 vaccination

On Monday, healthcare officials in Mississippi received the state’s first rounds of the COVID-19 vaccination. The state has been given 25,000 vaccinations in this first delivery. They are expected to go to frontline healthcare workers first, then the most at risk, eventually being made available to the public by the beginning of spring.

Of those individuals to receive the first five vaccines was State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs who said the shot felt like a butterfly or small sting.

#Mississippi‘s first five COVID vaccines were issued today to @msdh employees.Director @TCBPubHealth said he felt a little sting.

The state has received 25,000 doses of the vaccine in this first delivery. They will be administered to front line health workers first. #msleg pic.twitter.com/yqzf2Le3kq

— Yall Politics (@MSyallpolitics) December 14, 2020

Others who received the first vaccines are State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers, Health Protection Director and Senior Deputy Jim Craig, Sonja Fuqua, RN with the Community Health Center Association of Mississippi, and Dr. Leandro Mena of the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

The Moderna and Pfizer shot which are expected to be on the market first will be given in two doses, so even if you’ve had one shot you aren’t completely protected from the virus until the second round which is given roughly 21 days later.