Coffee County in Kansas has roughly 8,500 residents, but they won’t be getting their COVID-19 shots from the county health department’s four nurses.
Department chief Lindsay Payer and her staffers have opted out of giving the injections because they have doubts about the safety of the Moderna vaccine, which the county is offering, local TV station WIBW reported.
Payer told WIBW that her employees made up their own minds and “not without considerable thought.” The county will hire at least one outside nurse, who will be paid with COVID-19 funds.
“I will tell you we will have to contract staff…because my staff is not comfortable with that. It’s a new technology. We’ve never seen it before. It was only studied in 45 people before it was approved…,” Payer said.
“It’s somewhat discomforting to a nurse who has to put that in people’s bodies.”