(TNS) — The first shipment of the COVID-19 vaccine could reach Pittsburgh in weeks, pending the outcome of a Food and Drug Administration meeting next week, officials said Friday.
The FDA is scheduled to meet Thursday to consider giving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for COVID-19 emergency authorization, opening the door to distribution to hospitals and long-term care facilities nationwide. On Dec. 17, the federal agency will consider emergency approval of a second vaccine that was developed by Moderna Inc.
Both vaccines have shown to be 95% effective.
Hospital staff and nursing home residents and caregivers will be the first to be vaccinated. The Pennsylvania Department of Health will detail vaccine distribution plans “early next week,” spokeswoman Rachel Kostelac said.
That could come as early as Monday, when the health secretary, Dr. Rachel Levine, has scheduled a media briefing.
Drugstore giants CVS Health and Walgreens have been contracted by the federal government to administer the shots at long-term living facilities, Dr. Levine said Friday during a question-and-answer period with members of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, a Harrisburg-based trade group.
Only hospitals with the capacity to store the Pfizer vaccine at ultracool temperatures, including the Allegheny Health Network and UPMC in the Pittsburgh area, will get supplies of the vaccines, but the amount each will receive isn’t clear.
But all caregivers at hospitals and nursing homes are expected to be vaccinated within several months, she said, with shots for the general public anticipated to start in early summer.
“We’re seeing the biggest surge in the biggest pandemic we’ve seen in 102 years,” Dr. Levine said. “It’s going to be quite an effort.”
Planning for vaccine distribution is ongoing as Pennsylvania continues to break records for the number of new cases daily. The number of positive COVID-19 cases compared to the total number of tests administered statewide reached 14.4% for the week ending Thursday, up from 11.7% the previous week, according to new Health Department data.
In Allegheny County, the positivity rate pushed into the double digits at 12.6% for the week ending Thursday, up from 9.7% the previous week. The rising rate reflects both the increase in number of tests administered and the presence of the infectious disease in the community.
In the meantime, hospitals and long-term care providers are preparing for the vaccine roll out, even as details are lacking. In recent weeks, Allegheny Health Network spent $253,000 to expand refrigeration capacity at each of its hospital pharmacies to accommodate storage of the Pfizer vaccine.
“We have to stabilize the health care infrastructure to be able to take care of all sorts of patients,” said Brian Parker, chief quality officer at AHN. “Our No. 1 priority is health care workers, then we’ll work our way through the rest of the hospital.”
AHN will need about 22,000 shots for employees at its 13 hospitals, but the system has the capacity to store 125,000 Pfizer doses in special refrigeration.
AHN has told the Health Department that it’s willing to share storage capacity for long-term care facilities and other medical clinics outside its system, if necessary, Dr. Parker said.
UPMC has planned a news conference for Tuesday when the hospital system will detail its plans for the vaccine, a spokeswoman said.
Pfizer has said it will transport vaccine in GPS-enabled “thermal shippers” packed with dry ice to keep the medicine at negative-70 degrees Celsius. The minimum number of doses in a shipment package will be 975, Pittsburgh-area hospital officials have been told.
The Moderna vaccine, which will be distributed by Irving, Texas-based McKesson Corp. under contract with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will not require ultracool storage.
Hospital officials are considering rotating vaccinations through various departments in such a way as to avoid causing staffing shortages if several people in one unit experience side effects, said Jane Montgomery, COO at Cranberry-based Healthcare Council of Western Pennsylvania, a trade group that is assisting with coordinating the distribution effort.
Both vaccines require two shots.
Side effects from the vaccines have included swelling at the injection site, fever, muscle aches and fatigue. “Some of the data are showing that you could be sick for a while,” Ms. Montgomery said. “There’s still so much that’s still not known.”
The vaccine roll out to nursing homes and other long-term care providers could be more problematic, said Keith Frndak, president and CEO of Butler County-based Concordia Lutheran Ministries, which cares for 11,000 elderly and infirm people.
Concordia has not been contacted by Walgreens or CVS Health about vaccinating nursing home residents or home care patients, but CVS Health spokesman Mike DeAngelis said vaccinations were expected to start by the end of the month.
Mr. Frndak said the annual flu clinics held at its facilities will be a “walk in the park” compared to the complexities of administering the COVID-19 vaccine, which will include getting consent from people who sometimes suffer from dementia.
“We have so many different state agencies trying to coordinate,” Mr. Frndak said. “I just wish they could sit down with people in the trenches to better understand what’s happening on the ground …”
During the conference Friday with the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, Dr. Levine acknowledged the task ahead in getting everybody vaccinated. “It’s a challenge, and we’re up to that challenge,” she said.
