Vaccines could get to general population by Feb.
Health care workers line up now
Doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine were administered to more Boston health care workers on Wednesday and shots could make their way to the general population by late February.
“I believe we will have enough supply out there to be reaching out into the general public for administration at your CVS, Walgreens, Kroger near the end of February into March,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in an interview.
For now, doses are going out to heath care workers such Dr. Catalina Gonzalez Marques, an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital who was the first at her institution to get the vaccine.
“It’s an honor to be representing your hospital and your team and your community,” said Gonzalez Marques, adding that vaccine distribution has been the first sigh of relief for health care workers.
“Being a Latina physician and being in the ER there’s a personal heartbreak and a personal toll to seeing your community suffering and seeing patients with last names that look like yours,” Gonzalez Marques said.
Judith Rowell, a medical assistant at BWH Urgent Care was the second worker to be vaccinated, an honor she said was meant to be after losing her mother to COVID-19.
“I went in there today to pay tribute to her,” Rowell said of her mother. “I knew she would be very, very proud that I did it.”
She said having health care workers get vaccinated sends a message of trust out to the general public who may feel more comfortable with getting a vaccine when the time comes.
A total of 10 Brigham workers were vaccinated with Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine, which was granted emergency use authorization last week on Friday, on Wednesday.
Clinical and nonclinical patient-facing staff at DanaFarber Cancer Institute and employees of Massachusetts General Hospital also began the vaccination process after getting the first shipment of doses on Tuesday.
The vaccine supply chain is soon expected to be bolstered by doses of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine, which could be granted emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration by the end of the week.
After doses go out to health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, others sectors such as police officers, teachers and the elderly are set to be next in line depending on the allocation decisions of state government.