{"id":25654,"date":"2021-01-16T15:13:29","date_gmt":"2021-01-16T20:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=25654"},"modified":"2021-01-16T15:13:29","modified_gmt":"2021-01-16T20:13:29","slug":"bu-begins-vaccinating-employees-against-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2021\/01\/16\/bu-begins-vaccinating-employees-against-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"BU Begins Vaccinating Employees Against COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/966936709&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc; line-break: anywhere; word-break: normal; overflow: hidden; white-space: nowrap; text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif; font-weight: 100;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/wtbu\" title=\"wtbu\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wtbu<\/a> \u00b7 <a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/wtbu\/bu-begins-vaccinating-employees-against-covid-19\" title=\"BU Begins Vaccinating Employees Against COVID-19\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BU Begins Vaccinating Employees Against COVID-19<\/a><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By Grace Ferguson<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BU began COVID-19 vaccinations for its campus staff on Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The university <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2021\/bu-to-begin-giving-covid-19-vaccines\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">announced<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on Thursday that Massachusetts had designated it as a vaccine distributor for the BU community. So far, 500 doses of the Moderna vaccine have arrived on the Charles River campus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BU is following the state\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mass.gov\/info-details\/covid-19-vaccine-distribution-timeline-phase-overview\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">phased vaccination schedule<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which means that only employees in healthcare and COVID-facing jobs are currently getting the vaccine, including staff for BU\u2019s isolation housing, Student Health Services, COVID-19 testing labs, and testing sites.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI think a big part of the reason it\u2019s important to get vaccinated is because we live in a society. We live in a world bigger than us,\u201d said Luke O\u2019Roark, a staff member at one of BU\u2019s COVID-19 testing sites.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">O\u2019Roark was one of the first to get the vaccine on Friday. He feels safer going to work now, knowing he will have some protection against the virus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cPeople coming in, you don\u2019t know what their bubbles look like, what they do on the weekends, what they do on their free time, how safe they\u2019ve been,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is nerve-wracking.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Wednesday night, O\u2019Roark got an email inviting him to make an appointment to get the vaccine on Friday. For now, all COVID-19 vaccination appointments at BU are invite-only.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As O\u2019Roark described it, the process of getting the vaccine went smoothly. On the day of his appointment, he filled out his daily symptom attestation and showed up to the vaccination site in West Campus. Once he got the shot, he stayed at the site for 15 minutes in case he had an allergic reaction, which has happened in rare cases.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Luckily for O\u2019Roark, he has felt fine since he got the vaccine, except for a sore arm and some muscle pain, which are common side effects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some people are hesitant to get the vaccine because of the side effects, which can include flu-like symptoms. Other skeptics worry that the vaccine was developed too quickly. But those worries didn\u2019t phase O\u2019Roark.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAs a type 1 diabetic, I usually trust the medicine I\u2019ve been given because I\u2019m on such a slippery slope all the time,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">O\u2019Roark is due for his second dose in three weeks. All of the 500 doses BU has received are expected to be used as first doses. The university hopes to get more vaccines from the state soon to be used as second doses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The university\u2019s goal is to eventually vaccinate all 45,000 of its students and employees. It isn\u2019t clear how long that will take\u2014BU gets its vaccines from the state, which depends on the federal government\u2019s supply.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">BU\u2019s Vaccine Preparedness Group has been making plans to distribute the vaccine equitably and in accordance with state guidelines. As the university gets more vaccine doses, community members will be prioritized based on their job, age, and comorbidities as the state guidelines allow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2021\/covid-vaccines-arrive-at-bu-everything-you-need-to-know\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d COVID-facing workers at Boston Medical Center, BU\u2019s teaching hospital, have already received the vaccine, according to BU Today. Those vaccinations <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2020\/bmc-begins-administering-pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine-to-employees\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">began<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in mid-December.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even with a growing number of people getting vaccinated, BU\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/back2bu\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">COVID-19 protocols<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are not being relaxed for the spring semester.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Moderna vaccine is <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nih.gov\/news-events\/news-releases\/peer-reviewed-report-moderna-covid-19-vaccine-publishes\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">94.1% effective<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at preventing people from getting COVID-19 symptoms, but there is no evidence yet that it prevents asymptomatic spread. That\u2019s why BU health officials are urging the community to keep wearing masks and limiting interactions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Judy Platt, director of Student Health Services and co-chair of the Vaccine Preparedness Group, did not respond to a request to be interviewed for the story.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>wtbu \u00b7 BU Begins Vaccinating Employees Against COVID-19 By Grace Ferguson &nbsp; BU began COVID-19 vaccinations for its campus staff on Friday. The university announced on Thursday that Massachusetts had designated it as a vaccine distributor for the BU community. So far, 500 doses of the Moderna vaccine have arrived on the Charles River campus. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18157,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1597,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25654"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25655,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25654\/revisions\/25655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}