Community Pharmacy in Gretna playing major role in fight to stop COVID-19

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) -A local company will play a major role in the fight to stop the virus.

It’s one of nine pharmacies nationwide that’s about to start distributing vaccines.

“This is the biggest thing that’s happened in our lifetime. We continually say this will be the biggest contribution that many of us health care providers give to our industry in our entire careers,” says Kyle Janssen, Community Pharmacy Owner

By December 28th—community pharmacy plans to start the vaccination process… focusing on the people who live and work in long-term care facilities in both Nebraska and Iowa.

“We are prepared and our goal is once we receive the vaccine that we will vaccinate everyone that we can in 48 hours,” says Kyle Janssen, Community Pharmacy Owner.

Community Pharmacy owner Kyle Janssen doesn’t know how many doses they’ll receive to begin with.

But – his employees are expected to vaccinate 15 thousand residents and staff members within a month and a half.

It’s quick—but Janssen says they are ready.

“We’ve been doing influenza vaccines for over ten years in long-term care facilities so we have a history and a know-how of how to vaccinate in short periods of time. We are able to rely on some of our historical knowledge and operations to apply to this,” says Janssen.

The timeline will move much more quickly than a flu shot, though.

There will be three clinics at each long-term care facility in a 42-day time span.

That’s to cover the second dosage of the vaccine that is required... and make sure no new residents are missed.

“We feel like it’s our obligation to get this out as quickly as we can,” says Janssen.

And to help with that-- nearly three-quarters of the staff at community pharmacy has already volunteered to be a part of the process.

Pharmacy students at Drake University and UNMC will be helping as well.

And once December 28th rolls around—those volunteers will go into each assisted living facility to administer the vaccine.

“As we receive the vaccine, we will also be receiving all the supplies to administer the vaccine. So it’s all going to be coming in together within 24 hours,” says Janssen.

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