Vaccines on their way to Bay Area

First responders, front-line health workers to receive first doses of ‘liquid gold’ this week

The biggest vaccination effort in U. S. history began Sunday with shipments of millions of doses of a COVID-19 vaccine heading out for widespread distribution in the Bay Area and across the country.

Local hospitals and public health agencies prepared to receive doses that were scheduled to arrive as early as today from Pfizer’s Michigan facility.

“We’ve been getting ready for this for a long time,” said Dr. Desi Kotis, chief pharmacy executive at the University of California San Francisco.

California is expected to receive 327,000 doses of the

Pfizer vaccine in its first shipments, with the first shots being administered sometime this week. The state also is expecting to receive about 700,000 doses of a vaccine developed by Moderna by the end of December. The Food and Drug Administration could authorize emergency use of the Moderna vaccine by the end of the week, officials said.

The vaccines will be delivered to local public health departments and major hospital groups, such as Sutter Health and Kaiser Permanente. UCSF will start vaccinating people by Wednesday, Kotis said; the school’s first responders and high-risk health care workers received vaccination appointments on Saturday.

On Monday morning, some of the nation’s first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine will be administered to frontline healthcare workers at Washington D.C.’s George Washington Univer

“As supplies become more plentiful, we will vaccinate more health care workers, prioritized by their roles, patient-facing and employee-facing activities, and risk of exposure.” — Michelle Gaskill-Hames, Kaiser Permanente’s vice president of Health Plan and Hospital Operations

sity in a ceremonial kick-off event held by Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and U. S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams.

The product of months of research, testing and safety checks, the vaccine is the first major step on a long road for the United States and the world to recover from a disease that has led to 1.6 million deaths, including some 300,000 Americans, in barely a year.

The anticipated arrival of the vaccine comes as California and the Bay Area suffer through a surge of novel coronavirus cases that have led to stay-at-home orders in many areas. Case numbers and deaths continue to hit new highs as hospital capacity hovers at critically low levels across much of the state.

Federal officials said the first shipments of about 3 million doses will be staggered, arriving in 145 distribution centers today. They said an additional 425 sites are scheduled to receive shipments Tuesday, and the remaining 66 on Wednesday. The vaccine, co-developed by German partner BioNTech, is being distributed based on each state’s adult population, officials said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended the vaccine should first go to health care workers and residents at long-term care facilities.

Dr. Martin Fenstersheib, a Santa Clara County health officer, said Sunday he was not sure exactly when the vaccine would arrive this week, citing factors like weather and road traffic.

The public health department expects to get about 6,000 doses to vaccinate the county’s skilled nursing staff. Fenstersheib said Santa Clara County expects to receive 17,500 initial doses that will be delivered directly to approved hospitals, in addition to the county’s allotment.

Although characterizing the first shipment as small, Fenstersheib said county officials expect to receive new doses weekly.

Michelle Gaskill-Hames, Kaiser Permanente’s vice president of Health Plan and Hospital Operations, said Sunday in a statement that the hospital chain expects to receive limited initial vaccines.

“As supplies become more plentiful, we will vaccinate more health care workers, prioritized by their roles, patient-facing and employeefacing activities, and risk of exposure,” she said.

Hospital and public health officials had to react quickly over the weekend after the FDA authorized emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine Friday.

Just getting the vaccine to hospitals is an enormous undertaking: The Pfizer vaccine must be stored at about 94 degrees below zero. Pfizer officials said they were using containers with dry ice and GPS-enabled sensors to ensure each shipment stays appropriately cold.

Some health departments and hospitals have had to acquire cold-storage units capable of storing the vaccine.

UCSF got two ultracold freezers in October that Kotis said can store hundreds of thousands of doses that will arrive in a 9-by-9-by-2inch container similar to a pizza delivery box.

UCSF expects to get about 975 doses this week, the minimum number of vaccinations that are being distributed to facilities.

Kotis, associate dean of the UCSF School of Pharmacy, said the hospital added new security cameras and backup supplies, such as syringes, needles and alcohol wipes, in preparation for the vaccines.

“I would say people use the term ‘liquid gold,’ ” Kotis said of security measures. “It is such a hot commodity. We’re storing it in a very secure space. We will control every single dose.”

Kotis said the hospital will report daily to the CDC and San Francisco’s public health department on how many doses have been administered. The arrival of the vaccine is cause for celebration among public health officials like herself, she added.

“I pinch myself when I wake up,” said Kotis, who has spent four decades in health care. “Being able to get a vaccine that is this effective with mild side effects is phenomenal. It is not a train coming down the tunnel at you — it’s a ray of light.”

But even as the vaccine signals hope for the end of the pandemic, an undercurrent of vaccine skepticism has forced U.S. officials to work to allay fears that the vaccine has been rushed to market or compromised by a poisonous political climate.

The FDA’s chief has repeatedly said that the agency’s decision was based on science, despite a reported White House threat to fire him if the vaccine wasn’t approved before Saturday.

Speaking Sunday to Fox News, Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief science adviser to Operation Warp Speed, a U.S. effort to get vaccines developed quickly, also said he is “very concerned” about convincing the public that the vaccine is safe and effective.

“Unfortunately … there’s been a confusion between how thorough and scientific and factual the work that has been done is, and the perception that people are thinking that we cut corners or anything like that,” Slaoui said. “I can guarantee you that no such things have happened.”

Santa Clara County’s Fenstersheib said he understood some of the public pushback — “People are getting fatigued with all the orders given out” — but he added, “People wanted to hear about something hopeful. To me, it is something hopeful. It is not going to happen overnight. Hang on a little bit more.”

UCSF’s Kotis said it also was important to keep wearing masks and social distancing — even after receiving a vaccine. Kotis said it will be some time before it is safe for people to return to prepandemic habits, walking around without masks and attending sporting events and other activities.

“Just because you got the vaccine doesn’t mean you can party like it’s 1999,” Kotis said.