Local

JFRD to roll out COVID-19 vaccines to all employees

JFRD Receives $14 million Grant JFRD receives $14 Million SAFER Grant to hire 60 new firefighters in the City of Jacksonville. (City of Jacksonville)
(City of Jacksonville)

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department will start rolling on COVID-19 vaccinations to all of their employees starting next week.

The Moderna vaccinations were first given out to 25 firefighters on Wednesday, including Fire Chief Keith Powers.

“I’ll tell you how bad it bothered me. I went home yesterday afternoon and cut and split a load of firewood,” Powers said. “I got up feeling good this morning, I can tell something happened, something was there but it’s not even sore really.”

Companies will have a chance to get the vaccine starting on Monday at the Prime Osborne Center. The vaccinations will be given out on a voluntary basis to all employees, not just firefighters.

“As we run incidents here at headquarters, we have civilian staff that have to be in the building with uniformed firefighters as well and we need them to be healthy,” Powers said. “We can’t operate without that civilian staff and we need them to be healthy and not bring any nasty diseases inside of headquarters while we manage that incident, so it’s very important that the whole entire staff has been immunized.”

282 total firefighters have tested positive for COVID-19 this year. There are 74 employees that are currently quarantining and 32 have tested positive.

Under the current state recommendations, firefighters are not on the current list of vaccinated personnel. The focus is on front-line healthcare workers and long-term care patients, but JFRD received the vaccine early as they have 900 trained paramedics that will later help distribute the vaccine when it becomes available for more people. They will be working with the Department of Health to set up vaccination areas for when that time will come.

As of yesterday, 93,077 people have been vaccinated in the state of Florida. 831 people got vaccinated in our metro area on Wednesday alone. The firefighters who received the first dose yesterday will get their second dose in 28 days - January 21.


Hannah Lee

Hannah Lee

Hannah Lee is a General Assignment Reporter for 104.5 WOKV.

0
Comments on this article
0

mobile apps

Everything you love about wokv.com and more! Tap on any of the buttons below to download our app.

amazon alexa

Enable our Skill today to listen live at home on your Alexa Devices!