Lamont appoints commission to plan distribution of vaccine
As the nation prepares for an eventual coronavirus vaccine, Gov. Ned Lamont on Monday appointed a new commission to plan for inoculating Connecticut residents when such a vaccine is safe and available.
Speaking in a news conference after a call with Vice President Mike Pence’s White House coronavirus task force, Lamont said the new state group, which will include representatives from the General Assembly, has a mid-October deadline, as pharmaceutical companies continue two-tier trials on about 30,000 people.
“His direction to all the governors was very clear,” Lamont said. “Get a plan ready for distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. It’s about outreach. So when we have the wide distribution of the vaccine readily available, we have people confident that they can take it, they can take it safely and it’ll make a difference.”
Pence didn’t think a vaccine will be available until the end of the year at the earliest, said Lamont, noting that the political aspects of the pandemic and the imminent presidential election have complicated the vaccine issues. The governor said that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes that there will be a good supply of a vaccine by next April.
“We have to build up confidence so people who are vaccine-shy, have some confidence that when we do this we’re doing it in an appropriate, safe and effective way,” he said, stressing that Connecticut still has a 90-day stockpile of personal protective equipment, including masks, gowns and other gear. Pence’s group wants states to have 60-day supplies.
The governor’s new advisory group, which will meet in sessions available to the public, will establish priorities for handling and distributing a vaccine, including ways to communicate to residents who typically get flu vaccinations at an annual rate of about 50 percent.
“We’re going to do this only when it’s safe and and when it’s effective,” Lamont told reporters. He announced that over the weekend three more fatalities occurred in the pandemic, bringing the total dead statewide to 4,495, as the nation closed in on 200,000 people who have died. Connecticut net hospitalizations totaled 68, declining by nine since Friday.
Lamont was encouraged that the state infection rate remains at about 1.1 percent of those tested, and hopes that the state will continue on its current path, including a variety of educational tactics for inschool and distance learning.
The new commission, which will meet in early October, will be led by Dr. Deidre Gifford, acting commissioner of the state Department of Public Health, along with Dr. Reggie Eadie, president and CEO of Trinity Health of New England and St. Francis Hospital in Hartford.
“Now the work continues,” Eadie said, adding that when talking with Gifford, they agree that biggest challenge when a vaccine becomes widely available is to assure the public it is safe and effective. “We want to address any insecurities that exist in the community,” Eadie said. “We promise to be transparent with the work that we’re doing. These are unprecedented times, in any form of the imagination.”
Eadie hopes for a target of 70-percent participation in a vaccination program.
“Not everyone will be able to access a vaccine on day one,” Gifford said, noting that there are some parallels to the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009. “Making clear how that process will happen is one of the major tasks that he has charged the advisory group with.”
Lamont noted the irony in being ordered by the White House to make plans for distributing a vaccine that isn’t ready, months after the administration had consistently downplayed the effects of the virus.
“I’m afraid that’s the inevitable truth,” Lamont said. “If we had gotten more direction in terms of wearing the mask, how serious that is. If we had a better stockpile in terms of masks and availability there. If we had just taken this, all of us, seriously. We took it seriously as states, I think we really took the lead on this. But lives could have been saved if everything had gotten going sooner. Lives were lost unnecessarily.”