State readies for FDA vaccine ruling

If approval comes today, Hartford HealthCare ready to administer doses as soon as Friday

An independent panel advising the U.S. Food and Drug Administration meets Thursday to discuss the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine — and if the group recommends the vaccine for authorization, states across the country could begin receiving doses this weekend or early next week.

Hartford HealthCare officials said this week that they’re prepared to begin administering the vaccine as early as Friday.

“We’ll be prepared and ready to receive the vaccine as early as Friday,” said Hartford HealthCare’s pharmacy director Eric Arlia in an interview with the Associated Press. “We have teams ready, even if it comes over the weekend we’ll be ready to receive it.”

Connecticut’s first wave of vaccinations will focus on medical workers, particularly those who work directly with coronavirus patients. As more vaccine doses become available over the coming days and weeks, the state will vaccinate the rest of medical workers as well as nursing home residents.

Arlia said it will take two to three weeks to vaccinate all the medical workers who want to be vaccinated.

But before the vaccinations can begin, a COVID-19 vaccine has to receive authorization from the federal government. According to Pfizer, the company’s vaccine is 95% effective and safe for mass distribution.

Vaccinations for Connecticut’s 22,000 nursing home and assisted living facility residents is expected to begin as soon as next week, with CVSand Walgreen’s administering the program.

In a Thursday meeting that will be open to the public, the Vaccines and Related Biological

Products Advisory Committee will discuss whether the Pfizer vaccine is a good candidate for Emergency Use Authorization, which is less rigorous than full FDA approval.

If the independent advisory committee recommends authorization, the FDA will then decide whether to actually authorize the vaccine. Once that happens, the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed has pledged to send millions of doses to states within 24 hours.

The 15-member advisory committee is tasked with evaluating medical interventions and issuing a recommendation to the FDA on whether those interventions should be permitted for use in some capacity. The committee members are all experts in medical or related fields.

Another front-runner vaccine candidate, developed by Moderna, will undergo the same scrutiny and authorization process, one week later. The Moderna vaccine is scheduled to go before the advisory committee on Dec. 17.

It’s unclear exactly how many doses of each vaccine Connecticut will receive, if the vaccines are authorized.

Gov. Ned Lamont says he expects the state to receive an initial shipment of about 31,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine next week. The week after that, he expects to receive a total of 94,000 doses of the two vaccines, and then expects to receive a combined 51,000 doses of the two vaccines each week through the end of January.

If those estimates hold true, the state would receive 176,000 doses of the vaccines by the week of Dec. 28.

According to a timeline laid out last week by Lamont and Connecticut Acting Public Health Commissioner Dr. Deidre Gifford, the state hopes to vaccinate all medical workers and nursing home residents by the end of January.

The state then plans to expand vaccination to vulnerable populations, who will all be vaccinated by the end of May. After that, the remainder of Connecticut residents will be eligible for vaccination.

Gifford said she. hopes to vaccinate everyone who wishes to be vaccinated by early fall 2021.

The state’s vaccination timeline could be impacted by delays on the federal or international level — for instance if the FDA does not authorize the vaccine candidates as quickly as expected or if manufacturing is unable to keep up with demand.