Public Health Officer: ‘Vaccine Is Coming’
December 10, 2020 at 1:28 a.m.
Public Health Officer: ‘Vaccine Is Coming’
By Amanda Bridgman-
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer, along with Kosciusko County Health Officer Dr. William Remington, Bowen Center CEO Kurt Carlson and County Commissioner Cary Groninger spoke about updates on the virus, including new quarantine guidelines and distribution of the vaccine.
“The vaccine is coming,” Remington said. “This will be rolling out in a federally designated phased approach and what’s called Phase 1A should see vaccine going into the arms of Hoosiers in the next 10 days, we think.”
Remington said Phase 1A includes hospitals.
“The first to get the vaccine will be healthcare workers at the very front lines of exposure with COVID,” Remington said. “There are 400-some thousand healthcare personnel in the state of Indiana, so there will not be vaccine for all of them up front, so even in this earlier tier, there will need to be sub-prioritization as to who gets the earliest vaccine. ... Each week we’re in Phase 1A, there should be more liberal quantities available.”
According to a news release from Parkview Health and the Lutheran Health Network, hospitals that were identified to participate in the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) COVID-19 vaccination program are expected to receive their first shipment of the vaccine after Tuesday. Remington said local hospitals in Kosciusko County are participating in that.
In the first phase of the program, vaccine availability is limited to certain health care workers that have been prioritized and defined by the IDOH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee on immunization practices. In addition to vaccinating their own employees who qualify, the hospital clinics will vaccinate other priority healthcare workers, such as qualified nursing home staff. The vaccine will be provided at no cost to the recipients.
“Longterm healthcare facility residents are also part of the 1A rollout,” Remington said, saying that it will be coming from the federal level in partnership with CVS and Walgreens to work with the nursing homes.
“One hundred percent of nursing homes in Indiana have selected that national pharmacy partner to pull that off, I’ve heard,” Remington said. “That is somewhat a light at the end of the tunnel. The timeline is not clear, even to those of us close in conversation with this. We’re going to need lots of partnering to pull this off,” he said of mass vaccination. “But it’s coming.”
Remington said Phase 1B for the vaccine will include health departments, federally qualified health centers and community clinics.
“So 1B is big. 1A is big enough that it will take a sub-prioritization to figure out who goes first, and I think there’s gonna be lessons along the way,” he said. Remington said he hopes the federal government doesn’t “hang on” hospitals and health departments with the vaccine roll out too long but rather quickly have a private, public partnership “so you can show up at your doctor’s office or urgent care center or I?think prominently there should come now these large corporate pharmacies or any pharmacist that’s willing to do it. ... The timeline is so indeterminate but philosophically the most serving lines you can get to the quicker, the better.”
While Remington said he has no idea when the vaccine will be available for local residents who are not prioritized to receive the vaccine, he said people are “probably looking at March or April. That’s just an educated guess.”
“We’ll want to stay tuned to the growing experiences to these novel vaccines,” Remington said. “I welcome vaccines, and I will line up for a messenger RNA vaccine as soon as I’m eligible, but we’ll want to be wise, absolutely. ... We need to be wise as the population experience grows with these vaccines. It’s OK to be thinking as we go forward.”
In other news at the conference, Carlson said the Bowen Center’s testing site at the fairgrounds has been steady.
“The week before the Thanksgiving week we saw our all-time high with 1,672 cases,” Carlson said. “We were closed, the site was closed the two days of the Thanksgiving holiday, so it dropped down to 854. The following week we crept up to about 915 and it looks like the pattern now is more people are showing up in the morning and less in the afternoon.”
He said the site will be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Christmas Eve; closed Christmas Day; open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 26; open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. New Year’s Eve; closed New Year’s Day; and will be open Jan. 2 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
As of last week, the Bowen Center’s testing site has tested 8,601 people. “Probably over 8,700 now,” Carlson said. “It continues to be active, and the Bowen Center stands ready to participate in any way that the state believes would be a good task for us as part of the vaccines.”
Remington also reminded citizens that the CDC guidelines for the quarantine timeframe has changed from 14 days to 10.
“This is the guidance that you give to close contacts without symptoms, and if you are able and must get back to work and remaining symptom free, you can free yourself up from a quarantine of 14 days at 10 days and go back to work with a mask on,” Remington said. “The preference still is that you try to complete a 14-day quarantine at home, if you can, but the quarantine directive has been a real challenge for society, so there’s a little bit of fresh air in seeing a shortening in that period. It can be even shortened to seven days if you’re able to test and a get a result at day five, six or seven into your last exposure with your known contact case. I’ll just say that’s gonna be logistically almost impossible to pull off. ... In this county and many counties and the state, their preference is that we try to use the 10-day test-free approach.”
“I want to remind everyone how difficult this has been, and we know it’s been difficult for everybody, but I want to call out the Kosciusko County Health Department,” Thallemer said. “As this thing started out, they were working with the epidemiology and trying to understand the numbers and then they pivoted quickly to be responsible for the testing locally here and then all of a sudden contact tracing became another burden on them, then enforcement became an issue and now this vaccine is going to add another significant burden to their department. ... I know that by supporting the health department, with cooperation on a lot of these precautions that we’re being asked to take, anything we can do to lighten the burden by just showing the community collaboration and cooperation certainly will help with the heavy burden the health department has undergone.”
The next COVID-19 press conference is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Dec. 23 and will be virtual on the city’s website.
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer, along with Kosciusko County Health Officer Dr. William Remington, Bowen Center CEO Kurt Carlson and County Commissioner Cary Groninger spoke about updates on the virus, including new quarantine guidelines and distribution of the vaccine.
“The vaccine is coming,” Remington said. “This will be rolling out in a federally designated phased approach and what’s called Phase 1A should see vaccine going into the arms of Hoosiers in the next 10 days, we think.”
Remington said Phase 1A includes hospitals.
“The first to get the vaccine will be healthcare workers at the very front lines of exposure with COVID,” Remington said. “There are 400-some thousand healthcare personnel in the state of Indiana, so there will not be vaccine for all of them up front, so even in this earlier tier, there will need to be sub-prioritization as to who gets the earliest vaccine. ... Each week we’re in Phase 1A, there should be more liberal quantities available.”
According to a news release from Parkview Health and the Lutheran Health Network, hospitals that were identified to participate in the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) COVID-19 vaccination program are expected to receive their first shipment of the vaccine after Tuesday. Remington said local hospitals in Kosciusko County are participating in that.
In the first phase of the program, vaccine availability is limited to certain health care workers that have been prioritized and defined by the IDOH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee on immunization practices. In addition to vaccinating their own employees who qualify, the hospital clinics will vaccinate other priority healthcare workers, such as qualified nursing home staff. The vaccine will be provided at no cost to the recipients.
“Longterm healthcare facility residents are also part of the 1A rollout,” Remington said, saying that it will be coming from the federal level in partnership with CVS and Walgreens to work with the nursing homes.
“One hundred percent of nursing homes in Indiana have selected that national pharmacy partner to pull that off, I’ve heard,” Remington said. “That is somewhat a light at the end of the tunnel. The timeline is not clear, even to those of us close in conversation with this. We’re going to need lots of partnering to pull this off,” he said of mass vaccination. “But it’s coming.”
Remington said Phase 1B for the vaccine will include health departments, federally qualified health centers and community clinics.
“So 1B is big. 1A is big enough that it will take a sub-prioritization to figure out who goes first, and I think there’s gonna be lessons along the way,” he said. Remington said he hopes the federal government doesn’t “hang on” hospitals and health departments with the vaccine roll out too long but rather quickly have a private, public partnership “so you can show up at your doctor’s office or urgent care center or I?think prominently there should come now these large corporate pharmacies or any pharmacist that’s willing to do it. ... The timeline is so indeterminate but philosophically the most serving lines you can get to the quicker, the better.”
While Remington said he has no idea when the vaccine will be available for local residents who are not prioritized to receive the vaccine, he said people are “probably looking at March or April. That’s just an educated guess.”
“We’ll want to stay tuned to the growing experiences to these novel vaccines,” Remington said. “I welcome vaccines, and I will line up for a messenger RNA vaccine as soon as I’m eligible, but we’ll want to be wise, absolutely. ... We need to be wise as the population experience grows with these vaccines. It’s OK to be thinking as we go forward.”
In other news at the conference, Carlson said the Bowen Center’s testing site at the fairgrounds has been steady.
“The week before the Thanksgiving week we saw our all-time high with 1,672 cases,” Carlson said. “We were closed, the site was closed the two days of the Thanksgiving holiday, so it dropped down to 854. The following week we crept up to about 915 and it looks like the pattern now is more people are showing up in the morning and less in the afternoon.”
He said the site will be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Christmas Eve; closed Christmas Day; open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 26; open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. New Year’s Eve; closed New Year’s Day; and will be open Jan. 2 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
As of last week, the Bowen Center’s testing site has tested 8,601 people. “Probably over 8,700 now,” Carlson said. “It continues to be active, and the Bowen Center stands ready to participate in any way that the state believes would be a good task for us as part of the vaccines.”
Remington also reminded citizens that the CDC guidelines for the quarantine timeframe has changed from 14 days to 10.
“This is the guidance that you give to close contacts without symptoms, and if you are able and must get back to work and remaining symptom free, you can free yourself up from a quarantine of 14 days at 10 days and go back to work with a mask on,” Remington said. “The preference still is that you try to complete a 14-day quarantine at home, if you can, but the quarantine directive has been a real challenge for society, so there’s a little bit of fresh air in seeing a shortening in that period. It can be even shortened to seven days if you’re able to test and a get a result at day five, six or seven into your last exposure with your known contact case. I’ll just say that’s gonna be logistically almost impossible to pull off. ... In this county and many counties and the state, their preference is that we try to use the 10-day test-free approach.”
“I want to remind everyone how difficult this has been, and we know it’s been difficult for everybody, but I want to call out the Kosciusko County Health Department,” Thallemer said. “As this thing started out, they were working with the epidemiology and trying to understand the numbers and then they pivoted quickly to be responsible for the testing locally here and then all of a sudden contact tracing became another burden on them, then enforcement became an issue and now this vaccine is going to add another significant burden to their department. ... I know that by supporting the health department, with cooperation on a lot of these precautions that we’re being asked to take, anything we can do to lighten the burden by just showing the community collaboration and cooperation certainly will help with the heavy burden the health department has undergone.”
The next COVID-19 press conference is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Dec. 23 and will be virtual on the city’s website.
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