Tuesday Middletown Police staff had the chance to get a COVID-19 vaccine, 10 months after the outbreak started.
“We didn’t’ really skip a beat this whole time,” said Officer Jared Ceccllini. “We’re still going to calls and doing all the stuff we did before the pandemic hit.”
Ceccllini said he’s getting vaccinated so he can try to get back to some normalcy. He added that with two 5-month-old babies, this was hardly a debate.
“You try to be as careful as possible but as a police officer and first responder, and there’s a chance you can bring something home to them so the quicker you get vaccinated the quicker you don’t have to worry about things like that.”
Officer Jeffrey Scoppetto was also ready for day one of vaccinations.
“I’m just tired of the masks and the social distancing and not being able to go out to the restaurants and stuff,” said Scoppetto.
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The department, like some others, has had officers contract the virus.
“A couple guys have had it, we do a good job at the department following all the guidelines, and we’re wearing masks we take a lot of calls for service over the phone if we can,” said Ceccllini.
Community health center is making the vaccines available in Middletown to first responders.
“But for us to do our part it’s really important to us here at the health center because that’s what we’re all about,” said Gary Wallace, director of community relations for Community Health Center, Inc. “We want to help the people, we want to help our community, we want to keep people safe.”
They have about 4,500 vaccines available and will monitor how the first round goes as they plan for more vaccine location in the next few weeks.
“We’ll order more as we need them, but we have to also follow the guidelines from the state as far as how many we can do,” said Wallace.
Scoppetto hopes those who are able to get the vaccine will sign up. He too is hoping for a return to normal.
“I just want to end this virus,” said Scoppetto.
