Kenai Public Health Nurses and the Kenai Fire Department teamed up with the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services to administer COVID-19 vaccines at Soldotna Creek Park.
Chief Tony Prior of the Kenai Fire Department said that many showed up to get vaccinated, “This morning, right away there was a waiting line. So far, we’ve about 30 between the two of us here. That’s kind of what we’re shooting for. We know we’re not going to get hundreds, but if we can get 30 or 40 or 50 people on an event, we’ll be super happy.”
Prior said that Kenai Public Health Nurses and the Fire Department plan to be at the park on Wednesdays and Saturdays, “Yeah we’re going to try to alternate with Public Health. So if Public Health is here one Wednesday, we’ll be here the next. But we are planning to do that all throughout the summer.”
Dr. Anne Zink, Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer spoke with KSRM on why the DHSS was at Soldotna Creek Park, “(We’re) just trying to make vaccines as easy as possible for people to get vaccinated so that we can put this pandemic behind us and get on with our summer.”
With the fact that Alaska is pegged as a top vacation destination, Zink was asked if there’s the possibility of a spike in cases this summer as vacationers come to the Kenai Peninsula, “We do know that the more people travel and the more people mix, the higher risk we are, but we have a great offense against this virus and that’s vaccine. That’s part of the reason for our whole campaign for Sleeves Up For Summer because we know that there’s a lot of business that needs to happen, a lot of tourism that needs to happen, a lot of fish that need to get caught, a lot of berries that need to be picked. There’s things that we’ve got to do. If we can roll up our sleeves for this summer, we can get on with the rest of our summer, welcome in our tourists, welcome in our business and have a fantastic summer. That’s why we want people to get vaccinated now.”
With tourism comes the fact that on June 1st, anyone who flies to Alaska through the state’s major airports will be given an opportunity to get vaccinated. Zink said, “We actually have already started (administering the vaccines). It’s already up there and running. If you come through the airports, you can go ahead and get vaccinated right when you’re coming through. You can get your second dose anywhere. That big push as of June 1st, but we wanted to make sure it was set up and rolling well prior to that, so it’s up and it’s running and it’s going well. We’ve been getting a lot of people coming through both for industry as well as tourism. Again, trying to make it as easy as possible for people to make a healthy choice and get vaccinated.”
