Vaccine airlift
Kalaupapa gets special delivery
The state Department of Health delivered and administered the first COVID-19 vaccines to residents and employees at Kalaupapa this week.
The settlement, which is still home to surviving Hansen’s disease patients, had one case of COVID-19 in early December, which was contained without any community transmission. Kalawao County had been the last county in the U.S. without the virus, according to the DOH.
National Park Service officials said at the time that the person affected was not a patient.
DOH spokeswoman Janice Okubo said Wednesday afternoon that the person did not have symptoms and went into isolation shortly after arriving by airplane to Kalaupapa. Two others who were on the plane with the person went into quarantine, but no one developed symptoms and there were no other cases, Okubo said.
On Monday, Dr. Glenn Wasserman, chief of the Communicable Disease and Public Health Nursing Division at DOH, flew into Kalaupapa with two public health nurses.
“It is gratifying to be able to protect our Kalaupapa patients and community with these vaccinations,” Wasserman said in a news release Wednesday. “Our patients are elderly with significant comorbidities that make them especially vulnerable to COVID-19. We’ll be back in four weeks to administer a second dose of the Moderna vaccine to those who have now received their initial inoculations.”
Kalaupapa Administrator Kenneth Seamon said that “residents are very appreciative to have been included in the vaccination program.”
“Protection from COVID19 is critical to us since we do not have quick and easy access to medical services,” Seamon said. “We are grateful to Mokulele Airlines, which scheduled a special flight to deliver the vaccine, and everyone else who made this happen.”
Kalaupapa Settlement once served as the home for residents who were forced to relocate under Hawaii law for the isolation of Hansen’s disease patients. When the state abolished the law in 1969, former patients who chose to remain were guaranteed by law that they could continue living in Kalaupapa with the care and support of the State of Hawaii. Kalawao County, which encompasses the Kalaupapa Settlement, is administered by the DOH specifically to care for the remaining Hansen’s disease patients and works closely with the National Park Service and state Department of Transportation to support the Kalaupapa community, according to the release.