First Doses Of Covid 19 Vaccine Arrive At NMMC

TUPELO, MISS. (WCBI) – The first doses of the Covid 19 vaccine have arrived at the North Mississippi Medical Center.

One thousand nine hundred and thirty doses of the Pfizer vaccine arrived this afternoon at NMMC in Tupelo.

Those will go to frontline workers and highest risk patients throughout the NMMC system.  The first vaccinations will be given in the next couple of days.

NMMC Director of Pharmacy Wes Pitts says it’s amazing that the vaccine was developed and distributed so swiftly.

“Historically when you think about vaccines, you have to take the live virus and grow that and either knock it down enough to where it either doesn’t infect people or completely inactivate it before you develop vaccine, these new technologies we have they were able to do genetic sequencing on coronavirus vaccine and share that worldwide so you have a global initiative to do that,” Pitts said.

Pitts says the Pfizer vaccine requires two doses.  The initial dose, followed by a booster twenty one days later.