First vaccine doses delivered to St. Vincent’s in Bridgeport
BRIDGEPORT — Tuesday was a good day at St. Vincent’s Medical Center, said Vincent DiBattista, senior vice president for Hartford HealthCare and president of its Fairfield region, which includes St. Vincent’s.
That was the day the hospital received 200 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and the first group of employees — about five people — got their first round of vaccinations. DiBattista said he hoped Tuesday will be viewed as a turning point in the pandemic that has killed more than 5,000 people in Connecticut alone.
“This has been an extremely trying year for this organization and the staff, as well as for the country,” he said. “It’s amazing (that) within one year of the virus being detected and spreading, our scientists were able to develop a viable vaccine.”
The vaccine, created by Pfizer and BioNTech, is said to be 95 percent effective. It was authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday evening.
St. Vincent’s is part of the Hartford HealthCare system, which led the state in receiving doses of the new vaccine. On Monday, one St. Vincent’s employee was among those who gathered at Hartford Hospital to get one of the state’s first doses of vaccine.
Though a handful of St. Vincent’s workers got the shot on Tuesday, many of those at the hospital slated to get a dose from the first batch of vaccines likely won’t get it until at least Thursday. The vaccines also will be given into next week. A second dose should be given three weeks after the first for each person.
Dr. Funmi Falade said she expected to get her first dose of vaccine by the end of the week. Falade is medical director of critical care services at St. Vincent’s Medical Center. Though she’s relieved to see the vaccine getting rolled out, she said it’s not necessarily because she’s concerned about reducing her own risks.
“The protection of self is honestly the smallest part of it,” Falade said. “This is an issue of social responsibility. In the last nine months, in the ICU, we have taken care of hundreds of people who are very, very sick. You want to take any opportunity to halt the transmission (of the illness).”
Hartford and St. Vincent’s are the only hospitals in the system with a super deep freezer that can store the vaccine at the negative 70 degrees Celsius required, said Karen Scinto, regional director of pharmacy, laboratory and respiratory services at St. Vincent’s. She said the hospital was chosen as one of the sites for the freezer because it’s farther away from Hartford Hospital than other hospitals in the system.
If vaccine doses are removed from the freezer, Scinto said, they are only good for five days.
“This way, we have the vaccine where it’s needed and we’re not wasting doses,” she said.
Scinto said this first round of 200 doses should cover most of the hospital’s high- risk staff. She said, next week, another 1,290 doses are expected.
About 80 of St. Vin
cent’s staff said they would welcome the vaccine, Scinto said, though she knows there are those with reservations. She’s sympathetic, while also encouraging anyone who can get the vaccine to do so.
“I think what people are afraid of is just the unknown,” she said.