More state leaders received the vaccination against COVID-19 on Wednesday, including Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman, Chief Judge Denise G. Clayton of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, acting Kentucky State Police Commissioner Phillip Burnett Jr. and Emergency Management Director Michael Dossett.
Other state leaders who received the vaccine on Wednesday included Gov. Andy Beshear’s chief of staff, La Tasha Buckner, and his senior advisor, Rocky Adkins, and Virginia Moore, executive director of the Kentucky Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, who has been instrumental in helping Gov. Beshear reach more Kentuckians during the pandemic.
Their vaccinations follow the first vaccinations in Kentucky on Dec. 14, when the first round of hospitals began receiving and administering 38,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to front-line health care workers. On Monday, long-term care facility residents and staff began receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine through Walgreens and CVS, which have an agreement with the federal government. This week, about 80 regional hospitals and more than 90 local health departments are receiving over 70,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine to inoculate more health care workers.