The COVID-19 vaccine has arrived in Oregon. What's next?
Are hospitals using all the doses of the vaccine right away? How often will Oregon get shipments? When will OHA determine who gets the vaccine and when?
On Monday, a FedEx plane landed in Portland, carrying 975 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. It was the first batch of the vaccine to arrive in the state.
A portion immediately went to Legacy Health sites in Portland and Tualatin. On Tuesday, more doses were dropped off at Oregon Health & Science University Pharmacy were set to arrive at Kaiser Permanente’s regional pharmacy warehouse in Portland and St. Alphonsus Medical Center in Ontario.
On Tuesday, the VA Portland Health Care System received 2,925 doses. A VA spokesman said vaccinations may start as soon as Thursday for a limited number of people.
More than 19,000 additional doses will arrive at Portland-area hospitals throughout the week. And nearly 11,000 doses will go to skilled nursing facilities, with even more shipments expected to follow in the weeks ahead.
It’s been less than a year between the first case of COVID-19 in the U.S. and the first vaccine injection. Before this year, the fastest that scientists were able to manufacture a vaccine for a virus was four years. So we’re seeing a scientific wonder unfold before our eyes.
But it’s not without its hiccups and some big questions. Maybe the biggest question is who will get the vaccine next? Thirty five thousand front-line healthcare workers in Oregon are expected to get their first shot this week.
After that? It starts to get a little murky.
KGW reporter Pat Dooris talks about why we don’t know the answer yet.
Q and A with KGW's Pat Dooris
KGW’s Maggie Vespa: Pat, we were just saying it's such a historic day. We've been getting so many questions from people about everything tied to this vaccine distribution. I want to read a couple of them to you now.
First up, are hospitals using all the doses that they're getting in this first shipment right away, or are they kind of stockpiling some of them?
Dooris: Well, that's a great question. They should be using all of them. The government is saying the Department of Defense is coordinating all of this, and they want every one of those doses to go into a person. They do not want them holding half of them back because they're going to get more and more shipments coming in. So they should be using all of them.
Vespa: And how often will they get new shipments?
Dooris: That we know of, pretty much every week. There are 35,000 total coming in this week in Oregon. And then there are tens of thousands next week and tens of thousands the week after that. We don't know two and three months down the road, but it will probably be even more. Gov. Brown last week talked about inoculating as many as 10,000 people a day – which by the way, will take almost a year to reach the goal of 3 million – but there's going to be a lot coming in.
Vespa: OK. And then one question that we've been getting a ton, this may be the most frequent one. When will the Oregon Health Authority determine the order as to who gets their shots and when? When does that full list and full order come out?
Dooris: Well, you would think that this would be done. And I sort of want to be a little snarky and remind them that Christmas is the 25th of December. But they have so far only done the one list. So it's the health care workers and the janitors and the food service people and the security people, all the people in the hospital that are going to come into contact with COVID. But then it's that level B which is starting to get into other people, like maybe prisoners and maybe teachers and things like that. They have not decided that yet. They say they're going to put together a panel to decide that. They probably do have a little bit of lag time because they want to get all the health care workers across the state vaccinated first, and there's some 300,000 of those, I think. But still, come on, they should be on top of that, and really we should have had the answer probably a couple of months ago.
Questions from viewers
We also answered more questions from KGW viewers:
Q: If you are vaccinated, is it OK for you to be with others who were also vaccinated without social distancing, without wearing a mask? – Pat
Vespa: The science actually doesn't have a clear answer yet. The answer is: There's no answer right now. So your best bet is to be on the safe side. The experts say the vaccine, as we understand it, is extremely effective at preventing people from getting sick from COVID-19. But, and this is key, there are still a lot of questions as to whether the vaccine prevents people from contracting the virus and then spreading it to other people. In other words, you could still be a carrier.
Your question specifically mentioned other people who have also gotten the vaccine. Again, specifically, all of the recommendations we're hearing from doctors say we should continue doing what we been doing for most of 2020, which means wearing masks, social distancing and staying home as much as possible. The vaccine is a huge step, don't get us wrong, but it's not an on-off switch. And of course, as the science gets better, so will our understanding, so the answers could change. But in the meantime, from what we know now, it's just better to be safe than sorry.
Q: Can you do a story on the side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine? – Chung Kim
Vespa: While the vaccine has been tested on thousands of adults and deemed as safe, there are some side effects to be aware of. Dr. John Torres with NBC News laid out some of them for us.
Dr. Torres: Now, most of us won't be getting a vaccine until around the springtime, but once you do get it, don't be surprised if you feel some minor side effects. That's normal with most vaccines. If you know what to expect, you can be prepared. The most common side effects with the Pfizer vaccine are fatigue, headache, pain at the injection site and muscle aches. They usually kick in around 24 to 48 hours after the second dose and typically people feel better within a day or two. If you experience any of these after you get the vaccine, you can take ibuprofen or acetaminophen to help relieve the symptoms. The recommendation is to wait to take these until the symptoms start up and not beforehand. But it's important to remember side effects are common with most vaccines and this one is no different. It simply means your immune system is rubbing up to fight off an infection.
Vespa: All right, good to know. By the way, as for people with severe allergies, it's just best to have a conversation with your doctor if you're concerned about how this vaccine might affect you. But leading doctors say potential serious reactions are, most likely, very rare.