COVID-19 Vaccine: A Big Shot

More COVID-19 vaccines are headed to the area as the state and county continue to administer them to those in Phase 1a of the distribution plan.

Ohio County Healthcare began administering vaccines on Christmas Eve to several frontline nurses, doctors and other clinical positions as well as ambulance service employees and county officials.

This past week, OCH continued Phase 1a Tier 1 vaccinations of employees who work directly with patients with Tier 2 vaccinations of non-clinical employees starting with those who are considered high risk on Monday.

As of press time, OCH had vaccinated 219 healthcare workers, according to CeCe Robinson, OCH community relations director.

Also on Monday, the Department of Public Health allowed OCH to offer the vaccine to community partners who provide patient care. These included the staff of family medical facilities, dental offices, mental healthcare offices, pharmacies and physical therapy.

“We very much want to help supply our healthcare professionals in the community with the vaccine,” Robinson said.

In addition to the initial shipment of vaccines the hospital received on Dec. 23, OCH received an additional 200 last week for a total of 700.

Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine requires two doses of the vaccine to be administered several days apart, but Robinson said OCH’s goal is to push out all 700 vaccines as soon as possible with “faith” they receive enough for the second doses from the state.

“Our goal is to vaccinate as many as possible as quickly as possible and to be as transparent as possible,” Robinson said. “It is vitally important to the health of our community and economy to get as many people vaccinated as possible.”

Long-term care facilities are also part of the Phase 1a vaccine rollout. The

administration of those vaccines are not coordinated through the hospital.

According to Robinson, the Kentucky Department of Public Health anticipates beginning Phase 1b of the vaccine distribution on Feb. 1, plus or minus a week. Those included in Phase 1b are people over 70, first responders and K-12 school personnel. Those vaccines will be coordinated by the local health department and designated vaccine providers.

As of Monday, Kentucky has administered 60,414 COVID-19 vaccine doses – 49,773 through the statewide program and 10,641 in the long-term facilities program. There have been 122,100 doses received by the state program and 52,650 in the long-term facilities program. Gov. Andy Beshear said Monday that an additional 57,000 doses would be delivered this week.

Beshear said during his press briefing Monday that he was not happy with the speed at which the vaccines are being distributed throughout the commonwealth.

“We’ve got to get these things out faster. I’m not OK with the pace that they are currently being provided. We have too many people out there who are rightfully anxious, and they need to see this whole country pick up the pace. We are certainly going to do it here in Kentucky,” said Gov. Beshear.

Beshear said the state’s goal is to administer 90% of all vaccine doses received within seven days of arrival.

The planned vaccination phases are:

Phase 1a: Long-term care facilities, assisted living facilities, health care personnel

Phase 1b: First responders, Kentuckians age >= 70, K-12 school personnel

Phase 1c: Kentuckians age > = 60, anyone older than 16 with U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) highest-risk conditions for COVID-19, all essential workers.

Phase 2: Age >= 40

Phase 3: Age >= 16

Phase 4: Children under the age of 16 if the vaccine is approved for this age group (estimated to comprise 18% of Kentucky’s population)

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine tracker, approximately 4.8 million Americans have been vaccinated as of Tuesday morning with 17,020,575 having been distributed across the country. Over 3,260,000 vaccines have been distributed to long-term with 429,066 given in the country.