Some Durham VA patients to get COVID vaccine Wednesday, followed by medical workers
Residents of the Durham VA’s on-site nursing home will get vaccinated against COVID-19 on Wednesday, followed by health care workers at the hospital and its clinics in Durham, Raleigh, Greenville and Morehead City later this week.
Paul Crews, executive director of the Durham VA, said the medical center received 2,925 doses of the Pfizer vaccine Tuesday. It’s one of 37 VA sites across the country to be included in the first wave of deliveries of the vaccine, which was approved for emergency use last week.
In an online news conference Tuesday, Crews said the hospital was chosen because it has the deep-freeze capacity to store the vaccine and the means to administer it. The hospital got one new freezer just for the purpose of storing the vaccine, which has to be kept at between minus 76 degrees and minus 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Researchers who work at the hospital and next door at Duke University Medical Center who use super-cold freezers also made space available for the vaccine, the VA said.
The order to receive shots
The first to be eligible for the shots will be the 25 or so residents of the hospital’s “Community living center,” a 100-bed nursing home at the Durham VA. After that, medical workers in the hospital and its ancillary clinics can receive the shot; staff of clinics in Morehead City and Greenville have plans to drive to Durham on Saturday to be vaccinated.
Crews said the hospital is working to determine the next-tier priority among its at-risk patients and other employees.
Christopher Hostler, chief of the Durham VA’s office of public health and epidemiology, said it’s important to remember that it could be months before enough Americans have been inoculated against COVID-19 to significantly reduce the spread of the illness, so social-distancing, mask-wearing and hand-washing are still crucial.
But he said during the press conference, “This is a great day for science, and we have added a powerful weapon in our arsenal against this disease.”
Ken Goldberg, chief of the Durham VA’s medical staff, said during the press conference that a second vaccine, made by Moderna and expected to be approved this week and begin shipping next week, will be easier to get out to the people who need it because it won’t have to be kept at super-low temperatures.
The Durham VA serves nearly 70,000 patients from across 27 counties.
Veterans taking part in trials
Veterans who work at the facility and patients who are treated there are among the volunteers participating in stage-three trials for another vaccine. That one, developed by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a division of Johnson & Johnson, would require only one injection, while the other vaccines rolling out so far require two.
Also on Tuesday, Fort Bragg received its first shipment of the Pfizer vaccine, and two and a half hours later, the first patient had received it.
According to a press release, the first recipient is an emergency room nurse and nurse educator at Womack Army Medical Center on post.
This story was originally published December 15, 2020 at 4:34 PM.
