Fort Carson Soldiers head to Pueblo to help with FEMA vaccination site
FORT CARSON, Colo. (KRDO) -- On Monday, soldiers from Fort Carson headed to Pueblo to support the state-run, federally-supported Covid-19 vaccine clinic at the Pueblo State Fairgrounds.
About 140 soldiers from the Second Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the Fourth Infantry Division are making the trip in an effort to speed up vaccine distribution.
Lt. Col. Gary McDonald, Mission Commander said, “We’ve been training and preparing for a Covid vaccination mission somewhere in the U.S. When we were told we were going to Pueblo we were very excited.”
Fort Carson is always looking for ways to help in the Covid-19 efforts if you remember, back in February, about 220 Fort Carson soldiers were sent to Los Angeles to help at a FEMA-run vaccine site there.
“We serve where we are told to serve, but half of this vaccination task force are medics or medical professionals. This is right up their alley, this is what they are trained to do. Whether it’s here or abroad this is their mission,” said McDonald.
And last week, Governor Jared Polis announced the Federal Emergency Management Agency will transition to the Pueblo Fairgrounds site into a FEMA pilot site in an effort to ramp up distribution. FEMA says that move is supposed to happen on Wednesday and will take the site from just over 1,700 vaccinations per day to about 3,000.
“We have a mission to vaccinate about 3,000 citizens a day or until it’s done, until there is no one showing up to the vaccination site we will be there.”
