Mosaic Life Care will soon start COVID-19 vaccinations

Missouri....mosaic lifecare now with two weapons in their arsenal to fight the deadly coronavirus.

Kq2's kilee thomas with the arrival of the covid-19 vaccines.

On cam-the vaccines are here.

The first shipment of coronavirus vaccines arriving at mosaic life care monday morning-a day frontline workers say they've been waiting for for what feels like a lifetime.

"this is a wonderful day.""i'm finally getting to stand up here and say we've received the vaccine this morning."for the first time in nine months-front-line healthcare workers at mosaic are walking into work with a feeling of hope "you can actually feel the energy as you're walking in the building as people were finding out the vaccine had arrived."

"i would say it's an early christmas present, yes."

"i was going to wear my spring mask with baseballs on it just to say, 'looking forward to the opening day of baseball season.'" at 7 am doses of moderna and 975 doses of pfizer's covid19 vaccine came through mosaic life care's doors.a joyous sight for those working on the front lines since day oneas the virus has taken nearly 8,000 lives in missouri.

"just here in our system, 149 people have passed away due to covid."

Pfizer is being stored in negative 80 - 90 degree freezer, moderna stored at negative 20.

Mosaic's chief medical officer - dr turner- says frontline workers will begin rolling up their sleeves tuesday-starting with the most high risk health care workers "that means nurses, that means environmental services, those folks that clean those rooms, those cafeteria workers that go up on the floors and hand out trays.

That also means our doctors."

The local hospital will administer all of pfizer's doses before beginning moderna vaccinations.as pfizer was authorized for emergency use first but also to limit human error"so, if we're mixing both pfizer and moderna, they don't mix exactly the same.

The amount you administer is different.

We want to take human error out of that."

The first vaccinations will all be done publicly on camera.

While the vaccine will help battle virus- dr turner says the vaccine doesn't stop the need for safety precautions"that does not mean masks will be going away."

Mosaic says they will immunize 40 healthcare workers tuesday-starting with five nurses at noonthen over 100 hospital staff members wednesday...then the real work begins"our expectation is that we will be doing a couple hundred a day, at least."

On cam-mosaic will take a break from covid immunizations after wednesday for the holiday and then restart vaccinations after christmas healthcare workers can begin signing up for their slot to roll up their sleeve.

Reporting in studio, kilee thomas, kq2 news mosaic says they have two weeks to use the first shipment of vaccines.

They will receive the same amount of doses of both pfizer and moderna for the second shots.

Mosaic in albany and maryville will receive their shipment from st.