First health care workers receive COVID vaccine

Marty and Julita Michel receive the first two doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine administered by the Butler County Health Department on Tuesday morning.

Photos provided

The first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine in Butler County were given out Tuesday morning to frontline medical professionals. More will receive the vaccine in the coming days and weeks.

Marty and Julita Michel, owners of Key Drugs Pharmacy in Poplar Bluff, had 8:30 a.m. appointments at the Butler County Health Department to receive the first two doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine administered by the health department.

Emily Goodin, Butler County Health Department director, said it received “a couple hundred” Moderna vaccines. The health department will administer vaccines to “patient-facing health care workers” Wednesday as well.

“We’re very fortunate to get this first shipment,” she said. “We’ve put in a request to receive more next week, but we don’t know. It’s going to be one of those things where we don’t know if they’ve accepted our requests until we actually receive it.”

The Saint Francis Healthcare System started vaccinating frontline health care workers in Cape Girardeau on Friday, with over 500 receiving it by Tuesday, according to a press release.

Health care providers at partner clinics will start receiving the vaccine Wednesday, starting with those at Poplar Bluff and Sikeston campuses.

Before deciding to get the vaccine, Marty Michel said, he looked into the Moderna vaccine and read the 54-page study into the vaccine and vaccine trial so he could be informed on findings, risks and benefits of it.

“I was actually really impressed with the outcomes, it was quite impressive,” he said.

According to Marty Michel and the FDA briefing document on the Moderna vaccine, the initial vaccine trial consisted of 27,817 participants split about evenly between receiving the vaccine and receiving a placebo.

Of those who received the placebo, 90 developed COVID-19 compared to five who received the vaccine, resulting in a 94.5% efficacy rate.

Marty Michel said in reading the study, those who received the vaccine and still developed COVID-19 experienced less severe cases.

“The interesting fact about this is that of those 90 people in the placebo group, 30 of the cases were considered severe COVID cases, like hyper flow oxygen, and of the five people that got the vaccine, nobody was a severe case,” he said. “And so that’s what really spurred my interest and thought it was well worth getting.”

Another thing he found encouraging, he continued, was that the Moderna vaccine appears to both be stronger and limit transmission if somebody does develop COVID-19.

“If you do get COVID, you’re not really transmitting it to the other people around you, either,” he said. “Also, if you do get it (COVID), you’re not getting a severe case of it either, kind of like the flu vaccine does the same thing.

“Say you get the flu vaccine, and it may not be the exact strain of the flu that you’ve got, and you still get the flu. It makes it not as strong of a reaction to the flu that you would have without it. So it (the COVID vaccine) appears to be doing the same thing.”

With news of a different COVID variant starting to spread in Europe, one of the big questions is how effective the vaccine might be.

Marty Michel said the study suggests getting vaccinated could help against other mutations or strains because the body’s immune system is at least slightly more familiar with the virus.

“They think it may also help with those too, but they really don’t know,” he said.

The most common side effects of the vaccine are pain at the injection site, fatigue, headache, muscle pain, joint pain and chills.

Marty Michel said six pharmacy employees also received the vaccine Tuesday and the only adverse reaction he knows of anybody experiencing was one employee who developed a headache.

“Neither my wife and I could actually even feel the shot, which I was surprised,” he said. “I usually feel the flu shot. I usually feel a tetanus shot. I didn’t feel this shot at all, and I still don’t have any arm pain or soreness. I don’t have any rash. I have nothing, neither does my wife.”

The reason to get the vaccine, he explained, goes beyond protecting himself from the virus. Marty Michel said it’s also about reducing the strain on hospitals and intensive care units as patients need to be transported to other facilities for treatment because beds were full, including Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center.

“I’m getting the vaccination for my patients, for my family and for my community and say I’m doing my small part to help stop the spread of COVID,” he said.