COVID-19 vaccine arrives in Rogers

Published January 8, 2021

Mercy Northwest employees in Rogers received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccination between Dec. 23-31. Many health care professionals received the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine with excitement and relief. Dr. Jason McKinney, Mercy pulmonologist, Critical Care physician and Intensive Care Unit medical director, has worked in close contact with hospitalized patients in Mercy’s COVID unit since the beginning of the pandemic and was the first Mercy employee to receive the vaccine.  

“The vaccine is safe, and it works. I am relieved more than anything, as we’re beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.  

The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is administered as a two-dose series, three weeks apart, into the muscle. Most of the region’s health care workers will receive their second dose in January.