Valley medical students helping with fight against COVID-19

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Some local medical students are helping with the fight against COVID-19.

The qualified students have been volunteering their time get vaccines in the arms of local residents

"Right now what they're asking for are people who are clinical, so that would be the faculty who are physicians and nurses and the students who are under those programs," Dr. John Graneto.

Dr. John Graneto is the Dean for Osteopathic Medicine at the California Health Sciences University in Clovis.

He says dozens of medical students are using training they learned at the school to assist in vaccinations at hospitals, drive-through events and pop up sites across Central California -- not just Fresno County.

"We've had requests from other locations like Adventist and some of their clinics in the South Valley, and even Golden Valley up north has asked for our students and faculty to go there," said Dr. Graneto.

The requests come just as the City of Fresno is expected to get a mass COVID-19 vaccination site similar to those in Oakland and Southern California -- and while retail pharmacy chains are rolling out national vaccination plans.

RELATED: Gov. Newsom to be in Fresno on Thursday to announce Save Mart Center as mass vaccination site

At least one Clovis CVS location is expected to begin administering vaccines as early as Friday.

Dr. Graneto says students are lining up to be part of the solution when called upon.

"They're going to tell their grandchildren what did you do during the pandemic of 2021 and to be able to say they participated in injecting people with vaccines is really going to historic momentous occasion for them."