Officials talk diagnoses, logistics

Badges could mark COVID-vaccinated health care workers

Connecticut remains on track to receive about 31,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, despite reports of supply-chain issues, the governor’s office said Friday.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Pfizer had reduced its projected supply of the vaccine through the end of the year from 100 million doses to 50 million.

Gov. Ned Lamont’s office confirmed Friday that those supplychain issues had already been factored into Connecticut’s allocation of the two-dose vaccine. Max Reiss, Lamont’s communications

director, said the first delivery is still expected Dec. 14.

The number of people who choose to get vaccinated, however, remains uncertain.

At least one major Connecticut health network is considering having employees wear a badge to signal they have been COVID-19 vaccinated.

“We are thinking about some sort of additional badge saying that you got the vaccine,” said Dr. Thomas Balcezak, chief clinical officer for Yale New Haven Health.

Balcezak said some hospitals have workers wear badges to indicate they’ve received a flu shot.

Not only is it a way to show who is more protected against COVID-19, Balcezak said, it’s effective marketing.

“Once people see that so many others have gotten (the vaccine), they’re going to want to get it, too,” he said.

For the second day in a row, COVID hospitalizations declined in Connecticut on Friday. The governor’s office reported 41 fewer hospitalizations associated with the disease, but also noted there had been 35 more deaths since Thursday.

After reaching its highest daily positivity rate of 7.13 percent on Thursday, the rate fell to 5.52 percent on Friday when 1,538 new cases were reported.

In the coming weeks, doses of the COVID vaccine will be sent to Connecticut hospitals. Balcezak said he’s heard the first round of the vaccine should be available to Yale employees the week of Dec. 14. However, he and other hospital system officials said they don’t expect all employees will want to be vaccinated.

Balcezak said he’s optimistic those working in the Yale system will generally be open to the vaccine, but he doesn’t have numbers on who is expected to abstain.

“I think a higher percentage of our folks are going to find the vaccine acceptable than what we’re hearing about in the general public,” he said.

At Hartford HealthCare — a health system that includes Hartford Hospital and St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport — a survey has been sent to employees asking if they would be open to the vaccine, said Keith Grant, senior system director of infection prevention at Hartford HealthCare.

The surveys were sent out Friday, and Grant said he’ll have a better idea of what to expect when they are returned. Like Balcezak, he is hopeful that staff will want to be protected.

“Just the communication that I’m hearing is that it will be greater than 65 percent — up to 70 percent,” he said. “I believe in our health care community.”

But if the coverage isn’t high, they said the pandemic — and its rapidly rising number of hospitalizations — is not going to improve.

“If a lot of people don’t take the vaccine, we’re going to have to operate as if the vaccine is not available,” Grant said.

Balcezak said he doesn’t expect anyone to be reassigned if they choose not to get the vaccine “though I hope that’s a relatively small group.”

He said the health system is working to persuade as many people as possible to get vaccinated.

“We’re starting with providing a clear communication of the facts,” Balcezak said. “There’s a lot of misinformation out there in general about vaccines and we’ve got additional misinformation about the (COVID-19) vaccine, which is new technology.”