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Baptist Health La Grange receives 600 doses of COVID-19 vaccine

Frontline healthcare workers will line up to take their shots Wednesday morning.

LA GRANGE, Ky. — The staff at Baptist Health La Grange wheeled in several boxes filled with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and syringes on Tuesday, before loading the vaccine into the freezer.

The shipment is part of Kentucky’s vaccine rollout to acute hospitals. Baptist Health La Grange received 600 doses.

Frontline healthcare workers will line up to take their shots Wednesday morning.

“It was just an early Christmas present, let's say, because it rolled in and it looked beautiful to me,” said Baptist Health La Grange’s Director of Pharmacy, Angela Sandlin. “I am so ready to get started. We have been doing a lot of planning, we have had a committee of many people, everyone involved with this to make sure it went off without a hitch.”

Sandlin said she will not hesitate to take the vaccine when it’s her turn.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said the commonwealth will have received more than 200,000 vaccine doses by the end of the month, between Pfizer and Moderna. Those are allocated for frontline healthcare workers and those in long-term care facilities.

“That's 202,650 individuals that can be vaccinated here in Kentucky, that's really exciting,” Governor Beshear said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, members of the general public are lining up to get COVID-19 tests just days before Christmas.

“I really feel like it's more important to keep testing until the vaccine start taking effect,” said one of the testers at Lannan Park Tuesday, Nicole Stanley.

The pop-up testing site served more than 70 people in just a day.

“Until this pandemic slows down a little, we need to keep testing to make sure we keep everybody safe.”

UofL Health has three drive-thru testing sites across the Louisville area, and report an uptick in scheduled tests as well during the holidays.

A spokesperson for UofL Health said they’re seeing about 200 more appointments a day this week.

Sandlin wants to remind people that the vaccine is not an excuse to stop wearing masks, washing hands and socially distancing.

“You're not protected until after the second one completely, so it is not a time to drop what we've been doing, it's just a time a time to augment and begin that process, it is a first step,” she explained.

► Contact reporter Heather Fountaine at hfountaine@whas11.com and follow her on Twitter (@WHAS11Heather) and Facebook.

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