NORTHAMPTON — As the state saw more than 10,000 new coronavirus infections over the weekend, many are looking with hope toward the expected emergency approval of two vaccines this month.
At the front of the line to receive the vaccine in Massachusetts are local health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities — priorities set by the state with federal guidance. For local hospitals, that has meant boosting their deep-freeze refrigerator capacity to store the vaccines, for example, and working on priority lists for which departments will get immunized first.
The companies Pfizer and BioNTech will meet with the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday, when they could receive emergency-use authorization for their vaccine. Massachusetts is set to receive some 60,000 doses. But although those vaccines are likely to arrive at local institutions as early as next week, health experts are urging residents to redouble their efforts to socially distance, wear masks and slow the spread of the virus.
“The next few months are going to be difficult for us across the United States, and I don’t know that Massachusetts or western Massachusetts are going to be any different,” said Estevan Garcia, the chief medical officer at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton. “I think it’s important to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s still a long tunnel.”
Both Cooley Dickinson and Baystate Health officials said Monday that they are unsure how many doses they will initially receive, but that it will likely not be enough for their entire workforce initially.
The state expects to receive some 300,000 vaccines within a month. The company Moderna meets with the FDA to discuss emergency authorization of its own vaccine on Dec. 17.
Given the initial scarcity of the vaccine, both hospitals are working to prioritize which frontline workers will be first to receive the two-dose immunization. And for both hospitals, that decision will likely be made based on departments and not job titles, officials at the hospitals said.
“Health care workers are defined as a general term — it’s not just a nurse or doctor or pharmacist, it’s all support personnel that might be in and out of the room,” said Aaron Michelucci, the senior director of pharmacy at Baystate Health.
At Cooley Dickinson, Garcia said that “COVID-facing” workers would be first in line: the emergency department, intensive care unit and in-patient units, for example. Michelucci said that Baystate Health is still developing its plan for its approximately 12,500 employees.
Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require extremely cold temperatures to keep the vaccine viable, meaning that some institutions have had to scramble to improve their ability to keep the vaccine that cold.
Garcia said that Cooley Dickinson’s parent network, Mass General Brigham, has enough refrigeration capacity to handle the vaccine’s distribution. So, too, does Baystate Health system, though Michelucci said the hospital had to build that capacity.
As for when all health care workers will be vaccinated, neither hospital could say. Garcia said it could take until February or later for all the hospital’s staff to get access to the vaccine, which neither institution is mandating. Pfizer’s vaccine requires the second dose to be given three weeks after the first.
“This will go on for quite some time, and probably up through June, if not later, to get our community vaccinated, not just in Northampton or western Massachusetts but across the country,” Garcia said.
Until then, health care workers are urging the public to help flatten the curve.
“We’ve been doing this since March and we’re now in surge 2.0 and it’s very concerning as we’re up against flu season,” said Katie Murphy, an ICU nurse at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association.
Murphy said the MNA is encouraging its members to take the vaccine, though the union does not want it to be mandatory. She noted that more than 90% of nurses take the flu vaccine, and that as frontline workers they understand the importance of vaccination to public health.
But as the pandemic continues to rage across the country, the MNA continues to remain concerned about the shortage of personal protective equipment that frontline workers have seen since the start of the crisis. And Murphy said nurses are still worried about the months ahead.
“Please keep up the protocols, don’t feel like, ‘Because there’s a vaccine on the horizon I can have a big Christmas party or a New Year’s party,’” Murphy said. “We’re very concerned about people moving inside. Just keep up the same protocols — masking, not going places. I think that’s the most important thing right now.”
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.