Allegheny Health Network Teams With Church Leaders To Get Underserved Communities Vaccinated
By: Chris Hoffman
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Vaccination efforts continued Monday at churches in our area. The goal was to get shots into the arms of the underserved community.
"That's what a house of God is for. To benefit people, provide a service, to do whatever is necessary," Petra International Ministries Minister Carl Branch said.
About 500 people got their second dose of the Pfizer vaccine at Petra International Ministries in Penn Hills. It's part of a partnership between AHN and the faith-based community.
"I would say whatever is needed. We want to be available and ready. Poised and ready to do what is needed for the community and the good of the people," church elder Mattie Woods said.
According to AHN leaders, by Tuesday it will have administered its 300,000th shot. They are still stressing for people to get their shots. The healthcare giant has multiple clinics for this week.
Those clinics and registration can be found at this link.
"We would like to use them all and get as many people vaccinated as possible. So we can reach herd immunity," Allegheny General Hospital Chief Medical Director Dr. Imran Qadeer said.
"Everybody wants to get back to some kind of normalcy," Branch said.
Doctors said if we want to ditch the masks, we need to get the shots in arms. Experts said about 70-80% of people need to be vaccinated for this to happen.
"But if we don't do that, we might end up getting vaccines every year and also wearing masks all the time," Dr. Qadeer said.
Church leaders hope to have more flock is to help people who don't have the means to travel.
"That's our ultimate calling is to serve the people," Branch said.
"It was a natural fit to provide this for the community," Woods said.
