First Covid-19 vaccine given in Whatcom County

The first Covid-19 vaccine doses given in Whatcom County were administered to healthcare workers at PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center on December 18.

Agnes Kuc, a nurse in the hospital’s Covid-19 ICU, was the first person to receive the Pfizer vaccine.

“When I look back to the beginning, when there were so many unknowns, and think about all that we’ve been through since then, it means a lot to be here today,” Kuc said in a press release on the event.

In its first shipment, PeaceHealth received 975 doses of the vaccine. PeaceHealth will first vaccinate healthcare workers caring for Covid-19 patients and other high risk groups of healthcare workers, according to the press release.

As of December 30, PeaceHealth has administered over 1,000  vaccines to healthcare workers, a PeaceHealth spokesperson said in an email to The Northern Light. The hospital prioritized vaccines for healthcare workers with direct exposure to Covid-19 and then late last week began giving the vaccine to healthcare workers who might be indirectly exposed to the virus, the spokesperson said.