Most Downey firefighters choose vaccinations

Downey Fire Chief Dan Hurlock receives the Moderna vaccine on Thursday. (Photos by Alex Dominguez)

DOWNEY – The final handful of Downey Fire Department members received the Covid-19 vaccination produced by Moderna on Thursday, as the region continues to face a mounting case surge and dire hospital occupancy.

According to Ivan Orloff, paramedic coordinator for DFD, an estimated 60 department personnel were vaccinated.

“This is all part of the FDA EUA phase-1 program to vaccinate first responders,” said Orloff.

Vaccinations for the department started last week and were broken up over three days.

There were some who declined to be vaccinated, which Orloff said was to be expected.

“Most of the agencies that have been doing the same vaccinations we are have been around 70% acceptance rate, and we’re right about there,” said Orloff.

Like all other organizations, DFD has had to adapt how they operate during the pandemic’s duration.

“If we’re talking about times prior to COVID, we didn’t have the PPE requirements, we didn’t’ have the social distancing that was required. Even our station life has changed a little bit,” said Orloff. “How we operate on scene changes a little bit because we try to limit the number of personnel that are in contact with COVID infected patients.”

“Then there’s the whole trickle effect. If the hospital is inundated…all of that trickles down to us with what we call ambulance patient offload time, or sometimes just called wall times, and those increase. That means the more wall time you have at a hospital, then that’s less time for us to be available to go on other responses.”

They’ve also had about a dozen of their members infected over the course of the pandemic.

Orloff hopes that being vaccinated will help its staff provide the quality care that they strive to give while also maneuvering through the pandemic.

“If this vaccine keeps our members from getting seriously affected by the Covid-19 disease, then we’re going to end up providing service to our community,” said Orloff. “It’s up to us as essential workers to be healthy, to be fit for duty. So, if we can keep ourselves healthy and away from this disease, then we can provide service to our community.”