PEARCY -- More than 240 employees of the Lake Hamilton School District received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine during a clinic held Friday in Wolf Arena in partnership with Smith Drug and Compounding.
"We're very grateful to have the vaccine after these many months. We feel like this is the best way forward to getting back to offering all of our services on-site and allowing all of our students to come back and have normal operations," Lake Hamilton Superintendent Shawn Higginbotham said.
Smith Drug "reached out to us, and we were only too glad to accept the offer that they come and vaccinate our employees to help make this a safer environment for our kids," Higginbotham said.
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According to the school's Facebook page, 240 district employees had received their first dose by Friday afternoon, and dozens had already received their first dose at other places in the community this past week.
Higginbotham said the district is allowing its employees to make their own decision whether to get vaccinated, noting the choice may be based on their own personal circumstances.
"I haven't asked employees why they did or didn't, but I know that some have infants, and they may be nursing moms. They might be planning on becoming pregnant soon or are pregnant. So, it's a personal decision," Higginbotham said.
"Some may have autoimmune deficiencies that they don't need to take a vaccine. So, we respect that decision. We're trying to get as many as we can to develop herd immunity that we hear so much about," he said.
Citizens getting or thinking about getting the COVID vaccine will benefit from it because their own personal health will be protected from contracting the virus.
"At some point, it will also protect them from others who have it around them so that they might not have to quarantine on down the road. We'll get there. Hopefully, a lot of these restrictions will be lifted once we get to a point where that critical mass has been vaccinated. So it helps on many different levels. It also helped us get back to get back to what school is supposed to be with kids here on site," Higginbotham said.
"We feel like we've had a good turnout, and we're on the road to doing our part to get back to normal," he said.
