City of Foley to offer employees, immediate families COVID vaccine

By Jessica Vaughn
Posted 1/26/21

FOLEY - City of Foley employees and their immediate families will soon be able to receive the COVID-19 vaccination at Symbol Clinic, which is used by city staff. Along with employees and their …

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City of Foley to offer employees, immediate families COVID vaccine

Posted

FOLEY - City of Foley employees and their immediate families will soon be able to receive the COVID-19 vaccination at Symbol Clinic, which is used by city staff. Along with employees and their families, city council has voted to extend those who can receive the vaccine to others strongly involved with city business.

“This resolution will allow city employees and their dependents, and also those that closely interact with our employees like elected officials, their immediate households, board members and their immediate households, and volunteers that are regularly scheduled at the city and deal with the employees and their immediate households to receive the vaccination at Symbol,” said Sandra Pate, human resources director.

It’s anticipated the clinic will have the vaccine available by the end of January or the start of February. Symbol Clinic is required to follow the same protocols in place by the Alabama Department of Health. Once the vaccine arrives, if the state has not started vaccinating the general population then Symbol will only offer the vaccine to those 75 or older and those who work within the medical field or first responders, officials say. All city employees interested will begin receiving vaccinations once state regulations allow for the general population.

“The goal is to try to reach as many people as possible, because the whole goal is to try to get this country vaccinated,” said Mayor Ralph Hellmich. “Eventually they’ll get the vaccine to CVS, Walmart, Walgreens, everywhere that has a pharmacy and will participate, but Symbol went to the effort to become certified to do this and I think it’s good that our city moves forward to protect its employees and individuals that work closely with them and provide us important functions on these boards and our volunteers. We’re not reaching everybody, but it’s a start.”

In addition, the city council voted to allow employee sick time to include any absences due to adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine. If any employee who receives the vaccine experiences any such reaction, they will be able to utilize any accumulated sick time to recover. The city is making plans to allow for small numbers of employees in a single department to receive the vaccine at once. This is to ensure that no department experiences multiple absences at one time.

For more information, check out https://cityoffoley.org.