Photo By Petty Officer 2nd Class Jasmine Ikusebiala | SASEBO, Japan (Jan. 26, 2021) – Lt. James Bethea, security officer at Commander,...... read more read more
SASEBO, Japan (Jan. 26, 2021) - “Next patient.” says U.S. Naval Hospital Yokosuka/Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command, Branch Health Clinic (BHC/NMRTU) Sasebo staff to a line of first responder personnel waiting to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.
BHC/NMRTU Sasebo staff began administering COVID-19 vaccinations onboard Commander, Fleet Activities Sasebo Jan. 26, 2021.
“Since we have an abundance of people that want the vaccine, this was an all hands on deck effort for this first COVID vaccine SHOTEx,” said Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Gabrielle R. Varalli, work center supervisor of immunizations at BHC. “Our goal is to ensure all the doses that we receive each week are given within 72 hours, and this important information is reported up to higher headquarters.”
Vaccine administration is priority based and will occur in phases starting with healthcare and emergency service personnel (Phase 1a) and ending with healthy members of the base population (Phase 2). The SHOTEX evolution for a number of 1a and 1b personnel (critical national capabilities and Forward Deployed Naval Forces or those preparing to deploy) is scheduled from Jan. 26 - Jan. 27 in the theater on the main base.
“Today, we started our initial round of vaccinations,” said Lt. Cmdr. Kenneth R. Faubel, family medicine physician and the BHC/NMRTU lead for the COVID vaccine evolutions. “We started with Phase 1a people, so it was mostly our own clinic staff, security and fire departments.
The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine has been authorized for emergency use for individuals 18 years of age and older by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to prevent the spread of COVID-19 but has not yet been approved or licensed by the FDA. There are currently no FDA approved vaccines for COVID-19.
“The vaccine is an mRNA based vaccine against the COVID-19 disease/SARS-COV-2 virus,” said Faubel. “We received and are using the Moderna brand of the vaccine that was approved for EUA by the FDA after it underwent rigorous studies that demonstrated how effective it was with fairly minor side effects over all.”
A second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine is required for completion 28 days after the recipients’ first dose. COVID-19 mitigation measures such as facemasks, physical distancing, frequent hand-washing, and ROM sequester will remain in place until a sufficient percentage of the Navy/unit population is immunized and the rate of infection no longer poses an operational risk to the force.
“I hope recipients receive peace of mind knowing that they'll have a very high likelihood of being protected from this disease and hopefully they can get back to doing things with the people that they love,” said Faubel. “I understand that there may be some vaccine hesitancy for people and why they may not feel confident in something that they perceive as new, but if they have questions about it we’re more than happy to address those at the clinic.”
For more information, please visit https://www.navy.mil/Resources/NAVADMINs/Message/Article/2449173/sars-cov-2-vaccination-and-reporting-policy/ and https://www.facebook.com/CFASasebo
| Date Taken: | 01.26.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 01.27.2021 01:09 |
| Story ID: | 387692 |
| Location: | SASEBO, NAGASAKI, JP |
| Web Views: | 244 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, CFAS Initiates COVID-19 Vaccinations, by PO2 Jasmine Ikusebiala, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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