RICHMOND, Indiana — Reid Health in Richmond has been designated as one of the sites that will distribute the first doses of COVID-19 vaccine by the Indiana Department of Health, pending emergency approval.
According to a press release, the health system expects to receive 975 doses of the Pfizer vaccine that will be used to vaccinate frontline healthcare workers as part of Phase 1A of the statewide vaccination program.
Reid Health will help vaccinate workers in Wayne, Union, Fayette and Randolph counties in a two-part process. The doses that Reid Health will receive will be for the initial round of vaccinations that must be given 21 days apart to be fully effective.
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Thomas Huth, M.D., Vice President of Medical Affairs at Reid Health, said a collaborative team that includes the health department officials from those four counties are developing a plan for administering the vaccines, including determining the number of targeted workers in the region. Dr. Huth will be eligible for the vaccine because he works part-time caring for patients in local long-term care facilities -- and he plans to be first in line to set an example. “I want people to know we can be confident the vaccine is safe and encourage those who work with high-risk patients to plan to get it as soon as it is made available.”
Huth believes “vaccine hesitancy” will be the biggest hurdle. “The vaccine trials and testing processes were not compromised. No one should be apprehensive about taking this vaccine,” he said. The Pfizer/BioNTech version of the vaccine has been found to be 95 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 in clinical trials, something the developers were celebrating this week. It also seems to have some common vaccine side effects of headache, fatigue and injection site pain, according to some of the approximately 40,000 people who have received it in clinical trials.
At this time, Huth does not know how far the initial supply will go in reaching targeted staff members in the region. However, he is working with area health departments to finalize the estimated of how may workers would be involved in this phase.
“I want people to know we can be confident the vaccine is safe and encourage those who work with high-risk patients to plan to get it as soon as it is made available.” -- Thomas Huth, M.D., Vice President of Medical Affairs
A collaborative team is working to formalize a distribution process. The vaccine requires special freezers to store the vaccine. Reid Health has purchased that equipment and is ready in the Reid Pharmacy.
Because of the initial limitation of the supply, those who provide direct care for Covid-positive patients will be among the first targeted at the direction of state and federal health officials. Others include long-term care facilities, EMS teams and frontline public health officers. The state designated 50 hospitals and health systems for distribution as soon as final approvals are given.
The phased plan calls for high-risk healthcare workers to be vaccinated first. Phase 1B is designed to “protect the vulnerable” by targeting people at high risk based on the latest evidence at the time - likely to include age and those with chronic health conditions.
Phase 2 would include people living in group homes, correctional facilities or shelters, and people who work in settings where social distancing isn’t possible and transmission risk is high. The final Phase 3 would be for general public vaccination, according to the release.
Cox Media Group
