New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Help arrives: COVID vaccine rolls into Greenwich
GREENWICH — The truck pulling into Greenwich Hospital on Tuesday evening signaled that the day residents have waited nearly months for had arrived — the first doses of the coronavirus vaccine were delivered to town.
Yale New Haven Heath System, of which Greenwich Hospital is a part, sent supplies of the Pfizer-produced vaccine to its member hospitals. Greenwich expected to administer the first doses on Wednesday, an event it will share publicly via Zoom.
The first people to receive the vaccine will be frontline healthcare workers, including hospital staff, in order to allow them to safely treat COVID-19 patients. The town will begin distributing vaccines in early 2021 through its Department of Health.
Another vaccine, developed by Moderna, has not yet received emergency approval from the federal Food and Drug Administration for distribution, but that is expected soon. There is an expectation that the Moderna vaccine could be available in town within weeks, but it will still be some time before most residents can be vaccinated.
It was not immediately clear on Tuesday afternoon how many doses of the vaccine were delivered and how the distribution would expand after the first weeks.
“We need to follow state and federal guidelines for distribution (with) patient-facing healthcare workers first and then it goes to people living in congregate settings like nursing homes,” Greenwich Hospital’s public relations coordinator Magaly Olivero said Tuesday. “The federal government has not announced who would be eligible to receive the vaccine in the next phase.”
The Pfizer vaccine will be given in two doses, with recipients to get the second shot 21 days after the first one.
At a Board of Estimate and Taxation Budget Committee meeting on Tuesday, Greenwich Emergency Medical Service Executive Director
Tracy Schietinger said GEMS first responders would be getting vaccinated during this first phase of the distribution and they were “very happy about that.”
“We are working closely with the state and the Yale New Haven Health System,” Schietinger said. “EMS is in the very first group for distribution. We don’t have a date but we have submitted all our information and we are hopeful of receiving the vaccine for those who want it within the next week.”
On Tuesday, Greenwich Hospital reported it was treating 33 patients for COVID-19.
Greenwich Hospital President Diane Kelly and First Selectman Fred Ca
millo are scheduled to give an update Wednesday afternoon on the town’s
coronavirus situation.