Beaufort hospital to begin coronavirus vaccinations for staff Monday, official says
Beaufort Memorial Hospital will start to inoculate employees with Pfizer and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine on Monday, a spokesperson confirmed Thursday.
Courtney McDermott, a spokesperson for BMH, said the medical center is expecting a vaccine shipment by the end of this week.
McDermott said Thursday morning that she didn’t know how many doses BMH would receive.
It’s also unclear exactly when doses will arrive. Most hospitals have opted not to initially release that information due to security concerns.
It’s the latest development in Beaufort County’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign.
Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine, which was approved last Friday for emergency use, arrived in the county Wednesday, as Hilton Head and Coastal Carolina hospitals began to inoculate staff.
BMH and Hilton Head and Coastal Carolina hospitals are all enrolled in the state’s vaccine distribution network, but there’s a limited supply of doses for now.
S.C. health officials previously said they expected to get nearly 43,000 doses of the vaccine by Wednesday, with up to 56 locations receiving their first batches this week.
One of those locations is a “centralized distributing site,” which can help send vaccines to smaller providers elsewhere in the state, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Vaccines this month are being set aside for critical health care workers and residents and staff at long-term care facilities.
DHEC is expecting 200,000 to 300,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines by year’s end, including from biotech company Moderna, whose vaccine will likely be approved Friday or Saturday for emergency use.
The general public won’t have access to vaccines until sometime in 2021.
