Jefferson County will get nearly a thousand doses of the COVID-19 vaccine next week, said Jefferson County Public Health Officer Dr. Tom Locke.
A panel formed by the U.S. Food and Drug …
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Jefferson County will get nearly a thousand doses of the COVID-19 vaccine next week, said Jefferson County Public Health Officer Dr. Tom Locke.
A panel formed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration voted Thursday to recommend approval by the FDA of an emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine.
Locke told the Jefferson County Board of Health at its meeting Thursday that discussions on distributing the vaccine have been intensifying in recent weeks.
"We are expecting over 900 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to arrive in Jefferson County the early part of next week as early as Monday," Locke said.
There is also the possibility the first doses will arrive mid-week, he said.
The health department and the hospital "have been meeting virtually every day to figure out the prioritization schemes and come up with the list," Locke said, of those who will get vaccinations.
Jefferson Healthcare will be ready to go when the drugs arrive.
"The hospital is constructing an expanded drive-thru system that will be multiple lanes and will be able to vaccinate people," Locke said. "It's an exciting and complicated endeavor. And it's just the start."
Even so, supplies of the vaccine will be limited in the coming weeks.
Vaccinations will first be offered to healthcare workers and other front-line personnel, with shots for the general public to follow in 2021 as the supply of the vaccine increases and more doses become more readily available from Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies.
"By April or May we're really going to be trying to promote this to the people who are potentially reluctant to get vaccinated," Locke said.
"This is really the end game for bringing the pandemic to an end," he added.
County Commissioner David Sullivan shared a recent question that was posed his way: "Are the commissioners going to get their shots first and show leadership? Or are we going to go down with the ship and be like the captain; the last one to do it?"
The question prompted a bit of laughter from other health board members.
Locke, however, said the priority list for the people who will get vaccinations early will be set by the state.
"Really the decisions are state-by-state; they are not county-by-county," Locke said.
Locke said he would give an overview of the priority plan for vaccinations at the health board's next meeting Thursday, Dec. 17.
