CLEVELAND — Efforts to vaccine Northeast Ohio's medical staffs against coronavirus is well underway. When the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine was delivered to Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Michelle Medina, the Cleveland Clinic Associate Chief of Clinical Operations says staff were ready and excited.
“Operations are going smoothly. Caregivers are signing up, they’re very happy to get the vaccine. I was just saying some of them are so ecstatic about it they’re taking selfies of themselves right after they get the vaccine and sharing the good news that they’re getting it,” says Dr. Medina.
At MetroHealth, Dr. Brook Watts says they were delighted to learn a rumor about the vaccine was true.
“We’d heard that there was potentially extra vaccine in the vial, and it wasn’t til we started vaccinating on Wednesday that we realized it was true,” says Dr. Watts.
Instead of 975 doses, Metro gave out 1,174. Across town, University Hospitals is preparing to vaccinate employees starting Wednesday with the Moderna vaccine. Dr. Shawn Osborne said UH received thousands of doses.
“I’m happy to state that we did receive vaccine at some of our hospitals today,” says Dr. Osborne.
However not all local hospital systems have the newest vaccine to get FDA approval.
“There’s really a mass shipping effort going on out across the country right now so we do not have confirmation yet when we should expect our Moderna vaccine,” says Dr. Watts.
While they wait, all three hospital systems say they plan to work long hours to vaccinate all employees who want the shot.
“To cover night shift and evening shift and day shift and we will have some weekend shifts as well so I would anticipate this to be a six to seven day a week operation,” says Dr. Osborne.
Keep in mind, even with extra doses in some of the Pfizer vaccine vials and the Moderna vaccine being shipped, we have tens of thousands of healthcare employees in Northeast Ohio, so this will still take weeks to months to get everyone vaccinated before we move to the next phase.
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You can watch Gov. Mike DeWine's Monday COVID-19 briefing in the player below: