BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — All health care workers at Dignity Health’s Bakersfield hospitals are expected to get the COVID-19 vaccine by mid-January, according to hospital officials.
Dr. Hemmal Kothary, chief medical officer for Dignity Health Bakersfield, said the during a media roundtable this morning that Memorial and Mercy hospitals are expected to receive doses of the Moderna vaccine today or Thursday and expect more doses of the Pfizer vaccine to arrive in the near future.
“We should be able to vaccinate everyone in the hospitals (by) the second week of January, and then we will open it up to the community,” he said.
Dignity Health Bakersfield received a total of more than 2,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine last week for its hospitals, according to Kern County Public Health. The hospitals immediately began vaccinating frontline workers.
Health care workers and residents in long-term care facilities are the first groups to receive the vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that residents aged 75 or older should be the next population to be vaccinated.
