State leaders, hospitals prepare to receive vaccines as soon as this weekend

Click here for updates on this story

    HARTFORD, CT (WFSB) — As the Food and Drug Administration moves forward with approving Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, the focus has shifted to the medical workers who will administer it.

Hospitals and others have been getting ready for weeks to receive the vaccine.

After approval, shipments could start within 24 hours, and hospitals around the state are ready for those shipments.

That means medical workers could get the first doses sometime next week.

In his COVID-19 briefing, Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday that the vaccine will be distributed to hospitals and pharmacies, and then to clinics for high-risk employees by Dec. 15 and nursing homes by Dec. 21.

Lamont said things should not be like they were back in the spring.

Back then schools and non-essential businesses closed. Restaurants were only open for takeout.

While other states started to rollback, Connecticut has kept businesses open.

Livelihoods hang in the balance, so Lamont shared his thought process when making such tough decisions.

“We can tailor a little more than we did in Phase 1. Back in the spring when everything was on fire, we did what we thought we had to do to shut the door. I think we’ve looked at Europe and other places where they didn’t shut down schools, they kept schools open with a very low infection rate within the classroom so I think it would be different this time,” Lamont said.

Hartford HealthCare said it has been ready, getting in position to receive the vaccine after it’s approved.

Other hospitals are in the same position.

The rush is on to get the vaccine out to Americans, starting with those who will give the vaccine, then frontline workers and other vulnerable groups.

While the long-term effects are still a big question, the short-term effects don’t seem much different than the annual flu shot.

“Most of the study participants had very minor reactions in the sense of sore muscle pain, perhaps having a little bit of achy joints and slight flu-like symptoms,” said Dr. Karl Minges, Director of Master of Public Health at the University of New Haven.

There were some groups that were left of out of the clinical test, including those with weak immune systems, severe allergic reactions, and pregnant women.

Dr. Minges said those people in those groups should wait before getting vaccinated.

Just on Wednesday this week, more than 3,000 people died from complications linked to COVID-19.

Pharmacies said they are also ready to give out the vaccine.

“We must make sure that we utilize all of our healthcare professionals,” said Dr. Philip Hritcko, dean of the UConn School of Pharmacy.

A spokesperson for Walgreens said, “Walgreens has the pharmacist expertise, data and reporting infrastructure, cold storage capacity, and nationwide footprint required to manage the complexities of administering a COVID-19 vaccine.”

CVS announced earlier this fall that it will hire another 15,000 workers nationwide, the majority of the pharmacy technicians.

UConn runs a 21.5-hour class certifying pharmacists to give vaccines.

Hritcko said for many people, the pharmacy will be the easiest place to get a vaccine.

“Pharmacists are critical in the role that they play in public health and immunizations and prevention of disease,” Hritcko said.

The UConn pharmacy program is doing more than just training current pharmacists.

Channel 3 reached out to both Yale-New Haven and Hartford HealthCare to see if they’ll be requiring employees to get the vaccine. Both say, right now, it is not mandatory.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.