Opportunity to Vaccinate Sixteen and Seventeen Year Olds on May 17th

Cascade Medical (CM) has been vaccinating community members against COVID-19 for months, utilizing the Moderna vaccine. However, when the Pfizer vaccine was approved for use with youth sixteen to eighteen years old, CM and Cascade School District (CSD) came together to devise a plan to offer convenient vaccination for a large portion of the high school students.

As Sam Jerome, RN, employee health nurse at CM, explained, “Cascade Medical will be working with Confluence Health to transfer the Pfizer vaccine. We will work with refrigerated vaccine. Once picked up from cold storage at Confluence the vaccine has a five-day shelf life in the refrigerator prior to expiring. It will most likely be picked up the morning of the vaccine clinic.”

CM set up an easy online reservation system for families to pick a fifteen-minute time slot on May 17^th. Students can sign up for a slot before or after class, as the majority of students are on campus for half days. Remote education, Running Start and home-schooled students can also come in for a reserved appointment. The vaccine clinic will be held in the high school wrestling room and administered by CM staff Sam Jerome, RN, and Cass Mott, MA, working with school nurses Shelly Zehm, RN, and Kesha Smith, RN.

This clinic can administer up to eighty vaccine doses. “This is a one-day clinic,” said Clint Strand, director of public relations at CM. “If this is successful, and we see sufficient demand, we’ll explore the opportunity to add more days.”

The extra effort required to obtain the Pfizer vaccine doses and to work out the logistics represents the well-working partnership between the two entities. “Cascade Medical and the Cascade School District are committed to the communities we serve being as healthy as possible,” said Strand. “When we saw the opportunity to put together this clinic, all it took was a phone call to Superintendent Dr. Tracey Beckendorf-Edou to discuss logistics.”

Both CSD and CM are urging families to sign up for the vaccine clinic. “It is important that not only sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds, but all eligible individuals, get the COVID vaccine,” said Jerome. “Not only does COVID have a death rate ten times higher than the flu, but we are seeing healthy young people who get COVID suffer from long term consequences including but not limited to lung/heart conditions and clotting disorders.”

It is anticipated that one of the vaccines will be approved for younger students in the near future. After that occurs, hopefully, younger students will also be able to conveniently get vaccinated.

To select a time slot on May 17^th for the Pfizer vaccine for a teen ages sixteen and up, local families can go to: https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/CASCADEHIGHVACCINECLINIC@cascademedical.org/bookings/