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Sumter retirement home to be one of the first to receive COVID-19 vaccine

Leaders at Covenant Place say residents and staff will have three opportunities to take the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in the coming weeks.

SUMTER, S.C. — It’s been a long nine months for residents at Covenant Place of Sumter, as the pandemic lingers on outside their walls.

Up until now, protecting those at the retirement community has often meant separation from family and friends. Then the news of the first coronavirus vaccine came.

“We can’t wait to get it,” Executive Director Rip Linder said. “Our folks here are very vulnerable people. We have lots of people with underlying medical conditions.”

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Linder says their nursing and assisted living residents and staff will have the chance to take it first.

Credit: Kayland Hagwood
Covenant Place of Sumter bus

“We will do the clinic here. There will be three separate clinics so everybody will get a chance to take it ,” Linder said. “We have already turned in the number of vaccines that we need and they will bring the vaccination out to us. We don't have to provide any staff to give the vaccination. That will all be done with us through CVS Pharmacy.”

Some worry what could happen if they get the shot, others worry about a future without it.

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“They’ve been quarantined for so long,” Linder said. “The solitude, the being isolated. They’re just looking forward to seeing people again, and this is a gateway to do that.”

Linder says he’ll be the first in line and “hopefully that’ll encourage people that it is safe.”

Although the shots won’t be mandatory at Covenant Place, Linder says he’s hopeful that the impact will be long-lasting.

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“I think it’ll make a wonderful difference out in the public,” Linder said, "and the less exposure that they have for people that could transmit it the better off they'll be."

They’re expecting to receive the vaccine before Christmas.

It will be given in two doses. Linder said those who get the first round will have the second shot waiting for them in just under a month.

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