DUNMORE, Pa. — Employees at Riccardo's Market in Dunmore took a break from ringing up customers and stocking the shelves to receive their first dose of the COVID vaccine.
Grocery store employees became eligible on March 31, but staff from DePietro's Pharmacy were at Riccardo's on Monday to administer the shots.
"It feels good. And I'm relieved because I'm vaccinated now, and I'm protecting myself and others," said Pamela Hallock.
"My family owns the store, so I'm here every day, so it's really nice to be able to be around my family and be here and help everybody," said Lexxus Link.
Phase 1B of Pennsylvania's vaccine rollout officially opened on Monday.
Pharmacist Tom DePietro says the vaccine distribution process is going much smoother now.
"It's been more of a streamlined process than we saw for Phase 1A group. I think many of the people that are in Phase 1B most likely had appointments booked, anticipating this change to happen," said DePietro.
At Family Pharmacy of Olyphant, pharmacist Bob Stine says his phone lines haven't been ringing as much as he expected them to, now that Phase 1B is open.
"Not at this point, no. I'm a little surprised because I thought we would be getting a lot more calls, especially because when we got the vaccines for the 1As, we were inundated with phone calls initially," said Stine.
He hopes that means a lot of Pennsylvanians who wanted to get the shot already have.
Pharmacists told Newswatch 16 they expect the phone calls to pick back up starting on April 19, when all adults in Pennsylvania are eligible to receive the vaccine.
"I think we will definitely see an uptick. But being that 1B and 1C is primarily sector-driven, based on the job or occupation one has, I don't anticipate that to cause as much craziness as 18 and over could," said DePietro.
Phase 1B includes corrections officers, university employees, postal workers, manufacturing workers, clergy, public transit workers, and prisoners.
The next phase, 1C, opens on April 12.