Another shipment of vaccine doses more than doubled Skagway’s supply on Thursday. The municipality will distribute them over the next two weeks.
Skagway’s Public Safety Facility and Fire Department. (Image from Skagway Fire Department)
Another 250 vaccine doses arrived in Skagway on Thursday morning, municipal officials say. Borough Manager Brad Ryan says they should be able to give 200 people a first dose of the vaccine by the end of the week. The remaining doses will be distributed Thursday and Friday of next week.
“I’m very relieved,” Ryan said.
“This has been our request throughout the pandemic, and especially when vaccines came around was, you know, we really wanted them to provide vaccine, so that we didn’t overwhelm our clinic. We don’t have a lot of depth here. We’re very small and we have to send people out and, as we know, the hospitals are filling up.”
Ryan says if doses keep arriving at this rate the town should be ready to meet the cruise ship season, if it materializes.
Thursday’s doses came from the state and a contribution from Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. The state sent 100 Pfizer doses. Ryan says the rest are Moderna doses from SEARHC.
After residents aged 65 and older receive their shots, the call will open for essential frontline workers.
The municipality has received a total of 450 doses of the vaccine—enough to inoculate 225 people.
