Long-term care facilities await COVID-19 vaccine distribution

MEDFORD, Ore. — The first long-term care facility residents and staff in Oregon began receiving COVID-19 vaccinations on Monday.

Local facilities like Bonaventure of Medford say they aren’t expecting to receive the vaccine for at least two months.

However, director of operations Jeremiah Gray says they’re prepared for its arrival.

“Our team can mobilize and we’d be ready to go tomorrow,” Gray said. “So for us, all of our pieces are in place.”

Gray says the facility already has a contract with Walgreens as their pharmacy to help with vaccine distribution.

He says the vaccine will be given to them in two different waves.

After the first one, Walgreens will come back out two weeks later and administer another round.

“There will be time for folks who not only want to receive it initially, but also maybe want to get more information or wait and see what other people’s reactions are,” Gray said.

Gray says there will be multiple opportunities for people to receive the vaccine.

“For us, we’ve really been working hard to gather information, staying abreast of it as we can,” Gray said. “It’s a lot of different moving pieces and a lot of different entities all coming together to work on this. So, we’re just trying to be patient, continue with our precautions and keep our current residents and team members healthy and safe.”