Hospitals expected to begin getting COVID-19 vaccines in the upcoming weeks

Hospitals across the country are getting ready for the first shipments of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

News 12 Staff

Dec 4, 2020, 3:59 AM

Updated 1,405 days ago

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Hospitals across the country are getting ready for the first shipments of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
About 6.4 million doses of the vaccine will be shipped out throughout the United States within 24 hours of the FDA’s approval.
The chief medical officer at CentraState Hospital says that he expects the vaccine to arrive sometime between Dec. 11-15. He says that right now his staff is figuring out how to best inoculate about 2,000 doctors and nurses at the hospital.
“So, we have to stratify the higher risk, higher exposure physicians, because the variable right now is we don’t know how much vaccine we are going to get,” says Dr. James Matera.
The Pfizer vaccine had to be kept at -94 degrees Fahrenheit, which means that CentraState had to purchase new refrigeration.
Matera sys that he has been told that the hospital will receive 975 doses of the vaccine, which will be arriving in coolers.
“In a cooler they’ll be sending, you can stack five trays to bring you about to about 4,800 doses. So, imagine a cooler with 4,800 doses and then there’s dry ice on top of that for shipping,” Matera says. “Our freezer had the capability of holding five trays or one of those coolers.”
Matera says that he does not expect to receive 4,800 doses in the first round. It will be the state that determines those numbers.
He says that he is hoping for answers in the next few days as staffers figure out the logistics surrounding vaccination.
He also says that he expects to start receiving the Moderna vaccine about a week after the Pfizer one.
The Pfizer vaccine is administered in two injections. If someone gets the first shot of the Pfizer vaccine, they must also get the second one.