‘I am feeling well’: Residents at Pawleys Island retirement community get COVID-19 vaccine
When vaccinations began at The Lakes at Litchfield retirement community, a Christmas tree was alight in the corner of the room.
“You can sense the excitement in the air,” Executive Director Tim Layton said.
The reception area had been converted into a vaccine clinic on Monday. Two CVS pharmacists spent the morning administering the vaccines to The Lakes at Litchfield staff and residents.
Layton said 200 vials of the Moderna vaccine were available on Monday.
“I am feeling well,” Elizabeth Chipman said minutes after receiving the vaccine. Chipman, who is 88, said she has lived at The Lakes at Litchfield for two to three years.
“It interrupts your life,” she said about the COVID-19 pandemic. “Every part of it. But we live with it.”
Chipman said the vaccine gives her hope that she will be able to see her family in the near future -- closely and intimately. Because of the pandemic, Chipman has only been able to see her family from the other side of a glass divider.
“I saw [my family] a couple of days ago for about three minutes. And that’s just not long enough to say hello and love them,” Chipman said. “We have to see each other from behind the windows. I’m inside, they’re out.”
Layton said plans were underway to set up two more vaccine clinics in the future so that residents and staff members could receive their second doses if they got their first dose this week, or their first dose if they didn’t. The tentative dates for their next vaccine clinics are Jan. 11 and Feb. 8, Layton said.
The vaccines are stored in what look like over-sized lunchboxes -- with very, very cold ice packs inside keeping the vaccines stored at sub-zero temperatures.
Assisted-living residents were prioritized for the vaccine this week due to their age and other vulnerabilities to the disease, underlying medical conditions and close living arrangements.
Layton said 30 residents at The Lakes at Litchfield have contracted the virus since the beginning of the pandemic.
“It’s been a rough 10 months,” he said. “There’s been a lot of sadness and hurt. You know, anytime you lose a resident, it breaks your heart,” he said. “Hopefully that’s behind us.”
Layton said he had hope that the vaccine would bring about a return to normalcy at The Lakes at Litchfield.
“We have about 63 people in care services right now, and they’re all lining up to get it,” Layton said. “They have lived in isolation now for 10 months, not seeing their family and their friends. And they’ve seen a lot of heartbreak and hurt during the pandemic.”
He said the pandemic has strengthened bonds between staff and residents.
“We have become their family. We love on them, care for them, do everything we can for them. We’ve become very close to them. Even outside of a pandemic, we become their family, but even more so in a pandemic, when they don’t have access to their daughters and sons. We become daughters and sons for them,” Layton said.
The COVID-19 vaccines came to Pawleys Island retirement community during a critical time in the fight against the pandemic as Georgetown County hospitals became overwhelmed with coronavirus patients.As of Wednesday, Georgetown County had 2,973 covid cases since March and will likely surpass 3,000 cases this week.
Residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, which as of November had killed nearly 100,000 individuals in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In South Carolina, long-term care facility residents account for about 3% of the state’s roughly 250,000 COVID-19 cases, but more than 35% of its virus deaths, data show.
The vaccines administered at The Lakes at Litchfield are part of a federal program that aims to facilitate distribution of the vaccine. The program, which is a partnership between the CDC and CVS, Walgreens, and other local pharmacies across the country, “provides end-to-end management of the COVID-19 vaccination process” at no cost to the facilities.
