Nearly months after Franklin Ascension Hospital won its first COVID-19 patient, pharmacy director Mike Gillard filled a vaccine syringe to vaccinate his colleagues who opposed the disease that has already killed more than 305,000 Americans.
“This is a historic moment for everyone,” Gillard said Wednesday. “I hope this turns the corner into the pandemic and returns other people to a secure sense of normalcy. “
The vaccine, developed in record time through Pfizer and the German company BioNTech, is slowly being distributed to begin with, as hospitals improve their procedures.
State fitness officials reported that just under 200 other people in Wisconsin won the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at noon on Wednesday.
Milwaukee VA Medical Center, which won 2945 doses of vaccine on Tuesday, vaccinated its first five workers on Wednesday.
The number of vaccinations on the first day was the same in Ascension Franklin: five medical staff members. Emergency room nurse Stephanie Fidlin administered the injections, with each dose of only three tenths milliliter. The hospital expects to increase vaccines to about 40 to 50 others a day.
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“Looking back in March, when a lot of us were scared and didn’t know what was going to happen,” Fidlin said, “there’s something exciting about that day despite everything that’s coming. “
The first in Ascension Franklin, lung intensive care physician Joseph Weber, who cared for so many COVID patients and was so involved in transmitting the disease to his pregnant wife and 3 young children that he left home for a month in April.
“Early Christmas, that’s what it is,” Weber said after raising his right arm sleeve to get the vaccine. “For the first time in nine months, there’s a soft one at the end of the tunnel. “
For medical staff, Weber said, the arrival of the vaccine provides relief after months of fear that if you get sick, there will be no one to care for the next patient.
“For me, personally, the most vital thing is that I will be able to protect myself and my wife,” said respiratory therapist Mark Gustafson, who vacued after Weber.
His wife, Lisa, also a respiratory therapist, suffers from an autoimmune disease that puts her at high risk of serious illness due to the new coronavirus.
Respiratory therapists install breathing tubes and connect patients to fans, responsibilities that put them on the path of coughing and sneezing. From those coughs and sneezes come droplets and small debris in the air that spread the infection.
Wisconsin is expected to get 49,725 doses of the Pfizer vaccine until the end of this week.
Next week, the state is expected to get about 100,000 doses of the vaccine manufactured through Moderna, assuming the company obtains emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration. But it’s not the first time
The Pfizer vaccine is being sent to distribution centers in Wisconsin, state officials have refused to list the centers, raising concerns about protection.
On Monday, two primary sites won 10,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, said Andrea Palm, designated secretary of the State Department of Health Services. On Tuesday, about 22,000 doses reached 4 other locations. The last two centres are expected to be obtained. the remaining 18,000 doses on Wednesday.
In a call to the convention with reporters, Palm said the federal government had told Wisconsin how many doses Pfizer expected next week, and that the number of long-term allocations is unknown.
Not knowing how much he can expect to get the state each week, Palm said it’s also hard to wait how long it would take to vaccinate the state’s 400,000 fitness staff as well as retirement home citizens. vaccinated people.
“This is a position where we, as a state, and I’m sure many other states would agree, could use much more visibility in federal government distribution,” Palm said.
“We hope to get this data soon,” he said. But it’s very important for our ability to plan, work with our partners, assign them, drive them, and make sure they’re used safely and effectively. “
Plans are underway to deliver vaccines to more fitness care personnel in the coming days, as Pfizer vaccine doses reach 8 “pivot” locations in Wisconsin that have refrigerated garage facilities.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is sent concentrated in boxes of 50 pounds of dry ice and the vial yields five doses when diluted with a saline solution,” said Kim Bell, pharmacy director at Milwaukee VA Medical Center. Its removal requires special gloves and goggles due to the threat of handling dry ice.
Sarah Nickoloff, an internist and palliative care physician at the medical center, one of the first five workers to get vaccinated, said no one expected a vaccine to develop and temporarily approved it.
“But the road is exhausting to get here,” Nickoloff said, explaining that she had won the vaccine to protect herself, her family, colleagues and veterans.
“COVID is a terrible disease,” he says.
The Modern vaccine does not want to remain as unsettled as the Pfizer vaccine, so doses will be sent to clinics and other vaccination sites. This is one of the reasons why the state has booked Modern vaccines for nursing homes.
But the main points of Wisconsin’s Modern distribution plan have not yet been completed.
“Our ability to build those blows depends on how much our weekly allocation is, how much Modern it can manufacture, and then how much the federal government is leading the states,” Palm said.
“Many of those questions are questions for which we are eagerly awaiting answers, but there are still many unknowns, especially since this vaccine is still pending approval. “
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