SCRANTON, Pa. — A combination of volunteers and employees from the Prescription Center, a Scranton pharmacy, braved freezing cold temperatures for hours to get vaccines in the arms of the most vulnerable.
"We've kind of been rotating in and out of the tent every 10, 15 minutes, because I mean, it's unbearably cold," said Mike Ruane from the Prescription Center.
"It gets cold fast, so you have to be very quick when you are vaccinating these people because with vaccination, it requires pretty good hand technique, so you don't want to be out here too long shaking," said volunteer Josh Ruane.
After hearing the forecast earlier this week, the pharmacy almost decided to change the date of the drive-thru clinic.
"What it boiled down to was for a lot of people, it is life or death, so we were going to postpone it till next week, and we figured us being cold today, and getting the vaccine in the arm is far different and a better alternative than people not getting the vaccine," Mike Ruane said.
Another problem the cold temperatures presented was making sure the vaccines stayed at room temperature. Fortunately, staff were able to store the vaccines inside Scranton High School.
"And then when it's ready for use, it comes out here, and it's in the tent, which is, you know, somewhat temperature-controlled, but it's being administered almost immediately. So we definitely did have to take precautions to make sure that it didn't refreeze out here."
2,000 people applied to receive the vaccine at this clinic. The pharmacy had enough to give out 350, all to those eligible under Pennsylvania's first phase of vaccine distribution.
Gene Giello was one of the lucky ones. He originally wasn't going to be able to get an appointment anywhere until March, so a little cold weather wasn't going to stop him from rolling up his sleeve to receive the vaccine.
"It is nippy out here, but it's not bad," Giello said. "I'm in my car, so what the hell!"