Frontline Healthcare Workers Get First Vaccination With Coronavirus Vaccine in Seattle | Ap

Dr. Thuan Ong was trained on the gray hospital carpet of the UW Medical Center, with his knees and eyes clasped tightly in front of his colleagues and cameras.

On’s voice quivered emotionally in a complex reflex while waiting to be vaccinated against the new coronavirus.

“I am very honored,” said COVID-19, a disease caused by the coronavirus since February, and the lonely inhumanity that accompanies it, to the care facilities that the most vulnerable people are suffering from. Said Ong, who stepped in.

And he also felt sad for colleagues who were sometimes “fearful and hopeless”, lost patients, and those in impending pain as the number of cases of coronavirus surged while waiting for the vaccine. ..

“That’s the weight we all feel. The sadness of not being able to deliver it to them yet,” Ong said in a later interview.

On was one of the first 13 healthcare workers in Washington to receive the Pfizer-Bio N-Tech vaccine at an event held at the UW Medical Center on Tuesday. The event, which gave each worker time to speak, highlighted the complex emotions of tired front-line workers experiencing both hope and catharsis on the arrival of the vaccine, but during the fall surge in hospitalization. I was also deeply concerned about what would happen in.

Tim Delit, chief medical officer at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said 120 patients were being treated for COVID-19 on Tuesday.

“It’s likely to peak in early February and is expected to be three to four times the number of patients we saw in the spring,” Delit commented on UW medical admissions, based on the Health Institute’s predictions. Did. Indicators and evaluations. “The most important are fatigue, fatigue, and burnout.”

For the exhausted frontline workers, the vaccinations made me feel better.

“It was a long and exhausting road,” said Amy Fly, a COVID-19ICU nurse at Harborview Medical Center, who was first vaccinated on Tuesday. Fry said he felt hope and saw vaccination as “the first step towards the end of this nightmare.”

Vaccinated people consisted of different groups, such as age, race, and occupation. They included doctors, nurses, and environmental service technicians cleaning the room. Seattle fire department emergency personnel, flight nurses, and medical assistants were also vaccinated.

Vaccine doses were shipped nationwide on Monday and UW Medicine received approximately 3,900. Each UW Medical campus, including the UW Medical Center and UW Medical Center (Northwest, Valley Medical Center, Harborview Medical Center), received 975 vaccine trays.

UW Medicine will begin vaccination of high-risk staff all at once on Thursday. UW Medicine expects all of its first 3,900 doses by early next week and high-risk employees to receive their first dose by the end of December.

Dr. John Lynch, director of infection control at Harborview Medical Center, said more than 90% of people at high risk of infection have signed up to receive the vaccine. Lynch added that about 700 people applied for the vaccine.

According to Michel Roberts, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Health, Washington’s first 62,400 doses were given in 29 counties, including hospitals, one pharmacy, two tribal states, and urban Indian health care facilities. Directed to 40 facilities.

On Tuesday, doses continued to flow to medical institutions throughout the region. Among those who received the vaccine, the Lummi Public Health Department, which received about 300 doses of vaccine to distribute to frontline workers and vulnerable people on Tuesday, vaccinated staff to protect vulnerable patients. There was a Seattle Cancer Care Alliance to inoculate. CHI Franciscan Hospital System.

Swedes in Seattle began vaccination of their first staff on Tuesday afternoon. Immediately before receiving the dose, Dr. Mark Houghton, Executive Medical Director of Surgical Services, saw and compared the dose as it arrived on the moon landing. He said he was 100% confident in the vaccine and hoped that the promise would help people resist being alert during the holidays.

“The idea that God only knows, but only three or four months left, should be the boost we need,” Houghton said.

Sweden has received 3,900 doses and will receive them over the next four days, said Donna Jensen, Chief Nursing Officer of the Swedish Medical Group. “We are planning a fairly long number of days to ensure that we capture every shift and have the opportunity to stagger the timing. We should be golden,” she said. It was.

Sweden and its partner organizations have about 15,000 workers, all of whom are vaccinated as soon as higher doses are given. “We will do this for a while,” she said.

Between the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the Moderna vaccine awaiting urgent approval, state officials expect more than 400,000 doses from the federal government by the end of 2020. They go to the hospital for health care workers, some first responders, and residents of long-term care facilities.

According to an analysis by the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday, Moderna’s vaccine was safe and effective, and authorities were able to give a green light to its use later this week. Neither vaccine is made with the new coronavirus. Instead, a piece of the genetic code is introduced into the body to teach the immune system how to respond to the virus.

The state provides vaccinated people with the highest-risk health care workers, including those who treat COVID-19 patients face-to-face, laboratory staff, and the first responders at highest risk of exposure. I’m asking you to give priority.

Both vaccines require two doses, with dosing intervals of several weeks.

Clinical trial data suggest that both vaccines work well across different ages, races, ethnicities, body types, and existing medical conditions. Few serious health events were reported during the trial, but some vaccines involve kicks. This is a side effect that indicates that the vaccine is working.

Vaccines can cause reactions such as pain, malaise, headache, fever, and chills at the place of injection.

Two Seattle women who participated in a Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine clinical trial said the potential reaction should not scare anyone.

“People like us volunteered to know the safety and protection of vaccines. These early results showed that they were safe and effective,” said an intensivist. Researcher Dr. Carmen Mikasenic said. Virginia Mason and Benaroya Institute coordinating the trial. “If possible, people really should get it.”

Mikasenic, 40, also persuaded her mother, Karen Mikasenic, 68, to participate in a trial enrolling about 100 people in the only West Washington study on the Pfizer-BioNTec vaccine.

“It wasn’t much different from a flu shot,” Karen said. “My arm hurts a little, but that’s it.”

Neither woman knows if she has been vaccinated. For participants who have obtained a placebo, Pfizer offers the real thing on a staggered schedule, with healthcare professionals like Carmen Mikasenic first lined up.

Follow-up of the study will last for several months.

The UW Medical Center carefully monitored the reactions of vaccinated people. Nurse Caitlin Drew reported some pain at the injection site, but said there were no other reactions and observed them for 15 or 30 minutes.

Hospitals with a large shortage of staff, as they manage the proliferation of COVID-19 patients, expect some employees to experience temporary side effects 1-2 days after vaccination. Since the beginning of the pandemic, hospitals have discouraged workers from entering when they feel sick.

Now they need to carefully manage the staff’s schedule to vaccinate the unit, while staffing enough to manage care.

According to Lynch, UW Medicine will leave staff with reactions similar to the symptoms of COVID-19 at home and will be tested as soon as possible to distinguish between vaccine reactions and illnesses resulting from exposure to coronavirus. ..

Despite these complications, hospital vaccination workers who offer years of experience in centralized distribution, ultra-low temperature technology for storing Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, and management of efforts such as influenza vaccination clinics, It could be the smoothest part of the first effort.

More complicated is reaching high-risk first responders. First responders need to schedule and move hospital locations and nursing home residents and workers.

Some of the initial doses of the Pfizer vaccine in Washington were directed to Consonus, a pharmacy affiliated with a care facility.

Most of the state’s approximately 4,000 care facilities will begin vaccination after December 28, in federal partnership with CVS and Walgreens. According to Roberts, the state wants to give first doses to workers and residents of care facilities by the end of January of DOH.

Vaccines may be more widely available in the spring and summer, and state authorities are considering who to prioritize based on clinical trial data and guidance from independent advisors to the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Jules Mack, a respiratory care clinical expert at the Harborview Medical Center, who was vaccinated on Tuesday, said seeing her vaccinated was “monumental” to families across the country. Mr Mack said his family, including his son, had announced reservations.

“I stand up and share as a woman of color. This is safe,” Mack said shortly before being vaccinated. Her son sent a text message saying he was proud of her, Mack said.

“He sees it differently because he knows I’m here and I’m taking that step to keep myself and my family home. “There are,” Mack said, about vaccines if they were concerned.

The next wave of vaccinations for health care workers and caregivers will include some essential workers, the elderly, and people with serious health problems at risk of serious illness from the coronavirus. There is a possibility.