First COVID-19 vaccine in Idaho administered to doctor

REXBURG, Idaho. (AP) — The first COVID-19 vaccine in Idaho has been administered to a physician in the eastern part of the state.

Gov. Brad Little said on social media Monday that Dr. Russ McUne in Rexburg was the first Idahoan to receive the vaccine.

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare says it is expecting 13,650 doses of the new COVID-19 vaccines to arrive by later the week. The vaccine advisory committee discussed the state’s needs recently and determined that healthcare workers would be receiving the first doses, CBS-2 reported.

“As a ER physician working frontlines, working with a lot of COVID, this is a vaccine that we’ve been waiting for for a long time,” McUne told the Post Register. “So this is definitely something we need people to see, we need people to be able to do, and I want to set an example that this is not something to be afraid of. This is going to help us. We really really need this vaccine in people.”

The first vaccine doses come as the nation surpassed 300,000 total COVID-19 deaths, and while hospitals in Idaho are near capacity as infections, hospitalizations and deaths continue rising.