County Hospitals Taking COVID-19 Vaccines to Local Schools

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine (WAGM) - For students, finding the time to get the COVID-19 vaccine can be a challenge. Now, local hospitals are providing more convenient ways to get people 16 to 18 who want it, vaccinated.

COVID-19 vaccines have gone mobile. AR Gould hospital is taking doses of the COVID-19 vaccine into schools, holding clinics. Recently one of the clinics was held at Washburn High School. This meant students, like Beckam Vaughn, a junior at Washburn High School was able to receive his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine during the normal school day.

“It definitely did make it a lot easier,” Vaughn said. “I was planning on getting it eventually, but it was awesome that they were able to come to the school and I could get it today.”

“We’re really happy that the kids were able to get vaccinated today, Superintendent and Principal Larry Worcester said. “We know that the more students and staff that get vaccinated the easier it will be for us to have school in person.”

Jessica St. Peter, Director of Quality at AR Gould Hospital, says convenience is key.

“It helps us to get access to points where the person that needs the service is already going. We’re going to that location that they’ve got to be at anyways. So, it helps us to really increase the access to those who may not have had access otherwise.”

St. Peter says there are plans to get the vaccine into other schools as well.

“We have reached out to a handful of schools that are within our service area here in Presque Isle and have had some initial conversations,” St. Peter adds. “We do have some dates planned with some of the other high schools because right now the Pfizer vaccine is only available to those that are 16 and up. But as the Pfizer EUA is getting closer to that clearance for the 12–15-year-old population we will be looking at that as well.”

As for Vaughn’s advice to other students, “the vaccine is not a bad thing and it’s definitely helping the world…. It affects people differently. You might have different affects than I did but I’d recommend it to others.”

Other local hospitals are working to provide vaccines to schools in their respective regions.

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