LAWTON – When the first doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine arrived at Comanche County Memorial Hospital, Heather Love called it a game-changer. After watching suffering and tragic deaths take place for months due to the highly infectious virus, the first sight of the vaccine being injected was memorable.
“It was exciting today to see our staff come through and to see a glimmer of hope in their eyes,” said Love, the Director of Safety and Risk Management at CCMH. “Honestly, this has been very hard on our staff, our physicians, our nurses, our respiratory therapists, any of our health care providers. This has been difficult. They lose patients every day, don’t get me wrong, but COVID patients, with them you kind of feel helpless.”
Early last week Oklahoma received all of its initial allotment of 39,975 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine from Operation Warp Speed. That includes 33,150 doses to Oklahoma hospitals and 6,825 doses through direct federal allocations to tribal nations through Indian Health Services and Veteran Affairs.
“As governor, my job is to make sure our state has the resources and support to get the vaccine to Oklahomans as quickly and as efficiently as possible — no matter where they live,” said Gov. Kevin Stitt. “Our team of health professionals and state and local partners is following a detailed distribution plan designed to reach all corners of Oklahoma, and I believe we can lead the nation on this.”
The first 7,800 doses arrived Dec. 14, at INTEGRIS in Oklahoma City. An additional 9,750 were then delivered to Saint Francis Health Systems in Tulsa. The rest of the initial allocation arrived Tuesday and Wednesday morning at other designated healthcare facilities throughout the state, including Comanche County Memorial Hospital in Lawton and the Jackson County Memorial Hospital in Altus.
Initial doses were administered to frontline health care workers shortly after arrival at each hospital location. Laura Thomas, RN, an ICU nurse who has served on the COVID frontlines since the pandemic began, received Comanche County Memorial Hospital’s first vaccine at 3:06 p.m. Dec. 16.
Thomas was one of six hospital workers who received their first dose that day. Another 168 doses were given out Dec. 17. They were given enough for 500 recipients, according to Love.
“It’s being rolled out in phases, and the first phase is health care providers and also patients in nursing homes and long-term care facilities,” Love said. “Then once all of those are vaccinated, then they’ll move down to other phases within health care, outpatient care, different things like that, like clinics and other physicians that maybe aren’t necessarily directly taking care of COVID patients but could have them come into their office.”
Anyone 16 years of age or older will be eligible to receive the vaccine when doses are made available for their specific priority group. There is no set date on when the vaccine will be made available for the general public, which is the final phase of the release. However, the Oklahoma State Department of Health anticipates that all Oklahomans should be able to access the vaccine sometime in 2021.
Those who get the vaccine have to get a second dose of the same Pfizer vaccine in three weeks for it to be effective. That second shot will be available around Jan. 6. The Oklahoma State Department of Health has not announced whether they will start on a new phase of recipients before the first group has gotten both injections.
As more vaccines are approved and made available Love predicts more dates being added to the schedule. That includes the Moderna vaccine, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in an emergency rollout late last week.
“The next vaccine will be the Moderna vaccine. It doesn’t require the ultra-cold storage, so it’s a little bit different,” Love said. “One important part of that is if I received the Pfizer vaccine today, the Pfizer vaccine’s what I’ll get in 21 days. We wouldn’t ever mix vaccines. If we had new people come in, they might get the Moderna vaccine, but whatever vaccine you start with is the vaccine you end with for each person.”
Even as two different COVID-19 vaccines have been approved for use around the country, health officials are still warning people to stay vigilant on keeping themselves safe.
“While the vaccine does provide another layer of protection, it doesn’t take away the fact that we still have to wear our masks,” said Love. “We still have to watch our social distance, and we still have to wash our hands because we’ve got to get the whole world vaccinated before we can eradicate this virus.”