Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Vaccine Signals Hope For Exhausted Frontline Workers
Stat: ‘It’s Peace Of Mind’: Covid-19 Vaccines Can’t Arrive Soon Enough For Many Frontline Health Workers
Now that the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine has been cleared for emergency use, frontline health care workers across the U.S. are days away from being offered the shots. They couldn’t be arriving at a more crucial moment, with Covid-19 cases at their highest level since the pandemic began a year ago and many hospitals overwhelmed. (McFarling, 12/13)
KHN: Hospitals Scramble To Prioritize Which Workers Are First For COVID Shots
If there’s such a thing as a date with destiny, it’s marked on Dr. Taison Bell’s calendar. At noon Tuesday, Bell, a critical care physician, is scheduled to be one of the first health care workers at the University of Virginia Health System to roll up his sleeve for a shot to ward off the coronavirus. “This is a long time coming,” said Bell, 37, who signed up via hospital email last week. “The story of this crisis is that each week feels like a year. This is really the first time that there’s genuine hope that we can turn the corner on this.” (Aleccia, 12/14)
Bangor Daily News: Maine Hospitals Are Deciding Which Frontline Workers Will Get Coronavirus Vaccine First
State health officials chose the initial hospitals based on their ability to store the vaccines — which need extremely cold temperatures to remain viable — and their locations, aiming to spread the vaccines out as “equitably” as possible, Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said last week. But the limited supply means hospitals must be judicious in how they vaccinate at first. Even the hospitals that get the vaccine first may not get enough initial vaccines to cover their entire frontline workforce, a relatively broad group that hospitals could prioritize differently as they look to preserve continuity of care with cases and hospitalizations due to the virus hitting highs.(Andrews and Eichacker, 12/12)
FierceHealthcare: Exec Says CVS To Administer First COVID-19 Vaccines In Nursing Homes On Dec. 21
CVS is planning to begin administering COVID-19 vaccines in nursing homes beginning on Dec. 21, a top executive told Reuters. ... Chris Cox, senior vice president at CVS Health, told Reuters that the healthcare giant expects to receive its first shipments of the vaccine at the end of next week, but will hold off on beginning to administer the vaccine until Dec. 21 to comply with the regulatory agencies. (Minemyer, 12/11)
And 40 million doses could be distributed by the end of 2020 —
The Atlantic: COVID Vaccine Purgatory: How And When You'll Get A Vaccine
The biggest unknown is how long we will be left in purgatory. Operation Warp Speed officials have laid out an aggressive timeline to get nearly all Americans vaccinated by June, but this presumes several pieces going perfectly. The vaccines from Pfizer, which was just recommended for FDA authorization, and Moderna, which is expected to follow next week, cannot hit manufacturing delays, and additional vaccine candidates, from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, must earn speedy authorization from the FDA early next year. Pfizer earlier revised down the number of doses it will deliver in 2020 and separately has said it cannot supply any additional doses to the U.S., beyond the 100 million already ordered, before June. The timeline for authorizing AstraZeneca’s vaccine is up in the air after a messy clinical trial. And Johnson & Johnson’s has not yet been proved to work. (Zhang, 12/11)
The Hill: Operation Warp Speed Head Says 40M Doses Of Vaccine Will Be Distributed By End Of The Month
Moncef Slaoui, the scientific head of Operation Warp Speed, said Sunday that the U.S. plans to distribute about 40 million doses of coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2020. “We plan to have about 40 million doses of the vaccine available to us and distributed in the US by the end of this year,” Slaoui said on “Fox News Sunday,” adding that the U.S. would distribute up to 80 million doses through January. (Budryk, 12/13)
Reuters: U.S. Expects To Have Immunized 100 Million Against COVID-19 By End Of March -Slaoui
The United States expects to have immunized 100 million people with the coronavirus vaccine by the end of March, the chief adviser for the U.S. COVID-19 vaccine program said on Sunday. ... “We would have immunized 100 million people by the first quarter of 2021,” U.S. Operation Warp Speed chief adviser Dr. Moncef Slaoui said in an interview with Fox News Sunday. (12/13)
More details from New Jersey, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and the Navajo Nation —
Philadelphia Inquirer: First Doses Of COVID-19 Vaccine Expected To Arrive In Philly, N.J. On Tuesday
New Jersey’s first doses of the coronavirus vaccine will be given Tuesday, with the injections beginning for health-care workers in Philadelphia the following day, officials said. New Jersey’s first 76,000 doses will be administered at University Hospital in Newark, Gov. Phil Murphy said in a Sunday tweet. They have been allotted for health-care workers and residents and staff of long-term care facilities. (Park, 12/14)
The Washington Post: D.C. Coronavirus Vaccine: Fire Chief Donnelly, Other Firefighters To Get First Doses
Five first responders — the acting D.C. fire chief, the department’s medical director and three firefighters — will be among the first people in the District to get the coronavirus vaccine, as part of a targeted campaign to build confidence in the process, city officials announced Sunday. But while city officials expect the first shipments of the vaccine to arrive in the District on Monday, the fire department personnel will not get their shots until later in the week. (Fadulu, 12/13)
The Hill: Navajo Nation Will Receive First Doses Of COVID-19 Vaccine Early This Week
The Navajo Nation announced on Saturday that it will receive its first doses of Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine early this week. The nation said in a statement that it is expecting its first shipments on Monday and Tuesday. The doses will be administered to health care workers and those in long-term assisted living facilities. (Williams, 12/12)
