Deputy health officer gets his vaccine shot

SOUTH BEND, Ind.--St. Joseph Deputy Health officer Dr. Mark Fox spent the first part of his day on Friday at a press conference providing coronavirus updates to the county, and right after, spent the next part rolling up his sleeves to finally get vaccinated.

Kind of this sense of gratitude about what scientific and medical achievement this is to have developed a vaccine and deployed when we first learned about this virus just over a year ago,” Dr. Fox said.

In just a little over 30 minutes, Dr. Fox was in and out with his very first dose of the Moderna vaccine given by his boss, health officer Dr. Bob Einterz.

This was a really easy experience. There are some vaccines like tetanus where you feel it more the next day but in terms of this injection, nothing to it,” Dr. Fox said.

Dr. Fox said after all of this time talking about the coronavirus, it’s a relief, to say at the least, to finally have the opportunity to get immunized.

“We now have a weapon to help combat COVID but also I think it’s important for my family that I did this, they worry about me being out in the community a lot so you know I think it was important that I did that for them and to keep myself healthy,” Dr. Fox.

First responders, health care workers, and as of recently anyone over the age of 70 can get the vaccine in the county.

Dr. Fox said that while he understands the process is moving slowly and that there’s still lots of hesitancy surrounding getting vaccinated, he hopes that showing the community his experience will help encourage them to do so when they get the chance.

“To model for the rest of the community, that here I am somebody with a pretty significant allergy history, I reviewed the data, made a careful decision,” Dr. Fox said. “But it’s something I think everyone should feel comfortable that it’s a safe vaccine, that it offers benefit, and I would encourage everyone to do the vaccine when they’re eligible.”

If you are eligible to get vaccinated, you can go to the health departments website to sign up or call 2-1-1.