Holy Cross workers first to receive COVID-19 vaccine
Frontline healthcare workers at Holy Cross Medical Center became the first people in Taos County to receive shots of a COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday (Dec. 15).
Tuesday also marked Taos County surpassing 1,000 cases of the novel coronavirus since March.
Gayle Martinez, marketing and communications manager at the rural hospital in Taos, announced that the medical center had received an initial batch of 150 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine earlier in the day. The hospital had filed paperwork to serve as a distribution hub in Taos County, according to Martinez.
“This means Holy Cross Medical Center will identify and prioritize individuals receiving the vaccine,” she wrote in a press release Tuesday.
“This process will involve other healthcare and governmental organizations. The recipients of the doses received over the first few weeks will include hospital employees, Taos County
EMS, Taos Urgent
Care, local law enforcement, fire department staff, area clinics and pharmacies along with numerous other groups
of healthcare providers.”
Bill Patten, chief executive officer at Holy Cross, said he expects to receive a new shipment from the state every week moving forward.
“Our plan is to keep our community apprised of the situation as the vaccine distribution plan develops,” Patten was quoted in Martinez's press release. “Assuming delivery of the vaccine product continues, we should be able to get much of the medical community in the area vaccinated by early in January. From there we will next plan for providing the vaccine to 'essential workers' throughout the community beyond those in healthcare.”
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was approved for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Dec. 11 and is administered in two doses given three weeks apart. Known as a “messenger RNA vaccine,” a shot delivers what are known as mRNA lipids, which prompt the body to construct proteins unique to the coronavirus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The proteins destroy the genetic material from the vaccine. Then the body builds T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes that remember how to fight the virus that causes COVID-19 if the body is infected with the actual virus. It is estimated to be more than 90 percent effective in preventing the disease.
Another vaccine, developed by Moderna, a pharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, may also be approved by the FDA for emergency use throughout the United States as early as next week.