Houston hospitals awaiting vaccine delivery
Pfizer’s treatment goes to front-line workers, at-risk patients first
After months of anticipation about how fast a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine could be produced, four Houston-area hospitals are scrambling to prepare for shipments of the first one, likely in mid-December.
Texas Children’s, Houston Methodist, Memorial Hermann and MD Anderson Cancer Center confirmed Saturday they’re in talks with local, state and federal officials about the shipments, to be earmarked for front-line hospital workers. The talks are needed to coordinate the vaccine’s storage in ultra-cold freezers, then thawing and administration in great numbers of workers in a short time.
“This is a tremendous development in the fight against this pandemic,” Mark Wallace, CEO of Texas Children’s Hospital, wrote in an email to staffers last week announcing TCH’s participation. “I can think of no greater challenge we have had to overcome together, and I can think of no better news to hear than that Texas Children’s will be given such a vital tool in combating this highly infectious disease.”
Wallace wrote that Texas Children’s has received confirmation it is “pre-positioned to receive a shipment next week,” but hospital officials clarified Saturday that there is “no definitive timeline at this point.”
Later Saturday, a Houston health department official suggested the timeline calls for sometime in December. She said the latest word is that the vaccine will not be shipped to hospitals until the Food and Drug Administration grants it emergency use approval.
Such approval is not expected to be granted for nearly three weeks.
Drugmaker Pfizer submitted data for such emergency use Friday, less than two weeks after announcing that a preliminary analysis found its vaccine prevented COVID-19 more than 90 percent of the time, an efficacy level considered remarkable. The flu vaccine, by comparison, protects about 50 percent of the time.
FDA regulators likely will take about three weeks to review the data before an outside panel of experts meets to review Pfizer’s application, the New York Times reported Friday. That meeting has been scheduled for Dec. 10.
The Houston hospitals were selected to get the vaccine first because they have large workforces and freezers able to store the vaccine at the required -94 degree Fahrenheit. There are 975 vaccine doses in each shipment so it would be wasteful to send shipments to smaller hospitals.
A Houston hospital official said 12 Texas sites have been “pre-positioned” to receive shipments of the Pfizer vaccine, with more still to be added to the list. A spokesman for the Texas department of health declined to give a number Saturday because the agency “is still in the process of finalizing the sites.”
Though front-line hospital workers will begin getting the vaccine in December, healthy Americans should not expect their first doses until April, Dr. Tony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has said. The priority after healthcare workers will be first responders, people in nursing homes, people with underlying health conditions and the elderly.
But Houston hospital officials said next month’s shipment arrivals will be an important milestone.
“That we should start to see a flow of the vaccine soon is great news,” said Roberta Schwartz, president of Houston Methodist Hospital in the Texas Medical Center. “We are very excited about being able to bring the vaccine first to front line workers, who’ve done such an incredible job of taking care of COVID-19 patients since February and through this current surge.”