COVID vaccines could arrive in Tri-Cities soon. What happens next

COVID-19 vaccine could start arriving in the Tri-Cities this month for a select group of people.

Plans are being made for more widespread distribution in the Tri-Cities in the spring or early summer when the vaccine should be available to the general public, according to the Benton Franklin Health District.

The Tri-Cities is among the 20 prestaging sites around Washington state that have ultra-cold freezers to properly store the vaccines, say health officials.

Washington state has been allocated 62,400 doses of the vaccine initially, with another 200,000 expected to be shipped to the state by the end of the month. It’s not known how many of those doses will be shipped to the Tri-Cities area.

The first doses will go to front-line hospital and other health care workers, including doctors, nurses and other staff who could be exposed to patients with COVID-19.

Not only are they at high risk of exposure, but as health care professionals study COVID vaccine information and decide to receive the immunization, it should make them comfortable with recommending it to patients, said Michele Roberts, who’s leading COVID-19 vaccine planning and distribution efforts for the Washington state Department of Health.

Paramedics and emergency medical technicians also will be among the first to get the vaccine.

Roberts said the state may have roughly 300,000 high-risk front-line health care workers who would be given first priority for vaccinations.

Next to be vaccinated will be residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

Those residents are at a high risk both because of their communal living setting where the virus can easily spread and because the vast majority have underlying health conditions that make a serious illness or death more likely.

Decisions on who will be allowed vaccinations next are still being finalized by the state.

“Getting vaccine to the people of Washington is a large, coordinated effort and the timeline for when all eligible people can receive the vaccine is still a work in progress,” the Department of Health said in a statement.

At this point there is not a way for the general public to sign up for a waiting list for the COVID vaccine, according to the Benton Franklin Health District.

The New York Times has posted a calculator at bit.ly/COVIDcalculator that lets people put in information on their location, age, health and job to see where they might fall in line to be eligible to get the vaccine.

Not surprisingly, it puts health care workers at the front of the line and young, healthy people at the end.

Mass vaccination clinics

The Benton Franklin Health District is having regular meetings with the Washington state Department of Health and making plans for a possible mass vaccination clinics as the vaccines become more widely available, said Heather Hill, the district’s communicable disease program manager, speaking on the Kadlec on Call podcast.

They could be drive-thru clinics with precautions to prevent patients and workers at the clinics from infection, should anyone there already have COVID-19. People can be infected with the coronavirus without having symptoms.

Traditional locations such as health clinics and pharmacies also are expected to provide vaccinations when the vaccine is available to the general public.

The system will be complicated by the need for people to receive two doses of the vaccine.

For the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine a second dose is needed about three weeks after the first and for the Moderna vaccine the second dose is needed about four weeks later, Hill said.

Both Pfizer and Moderna have applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization of their vaccines.

People will need to keep track of which vaccine track they are on, because they are not interchangeable.

Providers will have record cards to give out to the patients they vaccinate to help them keep track of which vaccine they received and when they are due for a second dose.

Ultra-cold vaccine storage

The Pfizer vaccine, which is expected to make up the first 262,400 doses sent to Washington state, will need to be kept at ultra-cold temperatures, about minus 94 degrees.

The state Department of Health was finalizing over the past week 20 prestaging sites around Washington state that have ultra-cold freezers. They include sites in the Tri-Cities area, said Dr. Amy Person, health officer for the Benton Franklin Health District.

Medical providers and facilities in the two counties are among 116 that had enrolled with the state and been approved early in December to receive the vaccine when it is available, she said. Many other applications are pending approval.

The Department of Health is making sure that at least one provider in each county receives vaccine to provide immunizations.

Walgreens and CVS pharmacies will be working with long-term care facilities to vaccinate their residents, Roberts said.

The Pfizer vaccines can be transported from the prestaging ultra-cold freezers for distribution in containers fitted with dry ice to maintain cold storage temperatures for up to 10 days. They then will be thawed for use.

The Moderna vaccine needs to be stored at freezing temperatures, but at temperatures common in a home or medical freezer. Once defrosted it can be stored up to 30 days in a refrigerator.

Immunization cost, safety

The COVID-19 vaccine will be free, but providers may bill for the cost of giving the vaccine. But Medicare, Medicaid and most private insurance will cover the cost of giving the vaccine, according to the local health district.

In addition, the cost of giving the vaccine will be covered for people who are uninsured, according to the local health district.

Vaccine safety is a priority, according to public health officials.

“COVID-19 vaccine testing is going through all the same safety protocols that all vaccines go through,” said Dr. Person. “The fact that it will be available more rapidly than we traditionally see vaccines is not because of any shortcuts in testing or safety protocols, but it is because the vaccine is being manufactured at the same time that the testing is occurring.”

The vaccines must go through rigorous clinical trails with thousands of study participants receiving the vaccine, according to information from the Benton Franklin Health District.

The FDA evaluates the scientific data from the studies to determine the safety and effectiveness of each vaccine, with the input from an advisory group of outside scientists and experts, before giving emergency use authorization.

The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee will meet Thursday, Dec. 10, to review the emergency use application submitted by Pfizer on Nov. 20.

If federal emergency use approval is given, a vaccine scientific work group of representatives from Washington state will then vet the vaccine for use in the state.

After a vaccine is authorized for use, multiple safety monitoring systems are in place to watch for possible side effects, according to the health district.

If an unexpected serious side effect is detected after clinical trials are completed, experts would work as quickly as possible to determine whether it is a true safety concern.

The Centers for Disease Control and FDA have expanded safety monitoring systems for the COVID-19 vaccine to evaluate safety in real-time.

This story was originally published December 5, 2020 at 12:21 PM.