Granite Pharmacy to Vaccinate MCPS Teachers with Doses from Feds

Missoula’s Granite Pharmacy will be vaccinating all Missoula County Public School teachers and staff this week, according to MCPS Public Information Officer Hatton Littman.

“Last week was an exciting week when the President announced at the federal level that he wanted to get teachers vaccinated by the end of March, and he would provide the resources from the federal government to do so,” said Littman. “Immediately after that, we were contacted by Granite Pharmacy, a local pharmacy chain that has branches around the state, and they offered to help us vaccinate all of our staff.”

Littman said Granite Pharmacy has already been vaccinating staff at some of the smaller school districts.

“I want to also add a special note that they've been able to vaccinate staff at some of our smaller K-8 districts already, but our MCPS staff will be vaccinated this Wednesday through Friday,” she said. “We anticipate vaccinating around 1,100 people in this wave because many of them who qualified either medically or because of their job duties also had already received the vaccine in earlier waves.”

Littman identified the vaccine that will be used for MCPS staff.

“This is primarily the first dose of a two dose vaccine made by Pfizer,” she said. “When you get your first dose somewhere in Missoula County, that same provider is expecting you to come back for your second dose and they're holding a dose for you. So we're following that same system, and will be giving first doses to MCPS staff, and then in about 21 days or maybe a little longer, we'll be getting second doses.”

Littman wanted the public to know that MCPS staff is not ‘cutting in line’ for the vaccine, and that no one will be deprived of the vaccine to benefit MCPS.

“We are incredibly grateful that we've been given this opportunity both by the federal government and by Granite Pharmacy,” she said. “We also understand there are a lot of folks still in Phase 1 B that still need to get their vaccines, and we certainly are buffered by the fact that this does not take away any of the doses from those folks who qualify under 1 B.”

The Missoula County Health Department and the COVID 19 Vaccination Team continue to hold mass vaccination clinics.