OFM breaking
VACCINATING COLORADO
with
STRIDE DIRECTOR Shuanti Meyer by Ray Manzari
R
epresentatives from one of Denver’s federally qualified health centers, STRIDE, contacted OFM looking to educate readers on their current vaccination process. To date, STRIDE community health centers have vaccinated around 4,100 Coloradans. Colorado.gov is reporting that through the state’s 847 available vaccine providers, more than 1 million cumulative vaccinations have been administered. The U.S. has currently vaccinated 13.3 percent of its population. Colorado has vaccinated about 14 percent of its population. We sat down with Senior Director of Medical Affairs Shaunti Meyer to chat more about the ongoing process of vaccinating Colorado.
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What has been the general experience/mood during these vaccine drives? People are so very thankful and are showing lots of gratitude that they can get a vaccine. Moving from feeling like all we were doing is testing, and having hundreds of people coming back positive every day, to being able to move towards a little bit more of a hopeful process has felt really great. What symptoms can people expect after getting the vaccine? It’s quite variable. There were people who really had no reaction at all to the very first vaccine. But, we also then had people who had, from the first dose, high fever, chills, fatigue, nausea, arm soreness. And the second vaccine has been the same; the majority of people who we heard feedback from have gotten a little bit more of a reaction after the second dose compared to the first. We’ve had a very small percentage of people have a bit of a delayed reaction where they might feel fine the next day,
