Doctor working the front lines of the pandemic urges people to get COVID-19 vaccine

BOWLING GREEN, Ky.- “I mean this is a pandemic that we haven’t seen in over a hundred years.” 

Dr. J. Randall Hansbrough, a pulmonary physician at Graves Gilbert Clinic working the front lines of COVID-19 is urging the public to take the coronavirus vaccine once it becomes readily available. 

Just Thursday before speaking with WNKY News, he had to put yet another patient on a ventilator. He’s seen first hand throughout the pandemic what this virus does to people. 

“We have people that are contagious, we have nurses taking care of people that actually fear for their own health and for good reason, on these extremely ill patients. And I think it’s a huge burden on the medical care system, plus it’s wrecking our economy,” said Hansbrough. 

To those with worries about how fast the vaccine came out, he said it is nothing to be concerned about. 

“The technology they’re using has been around for years, it’s just there’s never been an urgency to produce a vaccine using these types of methods. Now there is, we’ve been practicing for years. The initial studies show that it’s incredibly safe, there’s virtually no significant safety issues,” said Hansbrough. 

And Med Center Health will also be receiving 975 doses of the vaccine for its employees, as Governor Andy Beshear announced yesterday. 

“They were selected because the CDC required that they had to have ultra low cold storage. They were selected because they were completely enrolled as a COVID provider and not everybody is completely enrolled yet. We wanted a good coverage area in Kentucky so you see we have sites in Western, Eastern, South Central Kentucky as well as some of our most populated areas,” said Beshear. 

They hope to have more of the vaccine widely available for more health care workers in the state.