SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Rows of tables and socially distanced chairs have already been set up at UC Davis Health in Sacramento as hospital officials expect to receive their first shipment of Pfizer’s emergency-use authorized vaccine as early as Monday.
The stations are complete with personal protective equipment and supplies, including saline. Hospital officials said the doses must prepped first by thawing the vaccine and diluting it with saline.
"One cannot waste one minute when getting the vaccine to our work force,” said David Lubarsky, Vice Chancellor of Human Health Sciences.
Pamela Wu, hospital spokeswoman, said the plan is to inoculate front-line staff within an hour of vaccine delivery, by appointment.
The first in line are those who work in the emergency department, which includes staff who clean rooms, food service workers, reception staff who greet patients, and those who provide direct patient care such as doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and more.
"This is truly, the beginning of the end of the war on the pandemic,” said Lubarsky.
A hospital spokesman said it is unlikely the hospital will receive enough doses to vaccinate every employee in this first round, but they are hopeful other pharmaceutical companies, like Moderna, are weeks away from approval. The hospital has more ultra cold freezers on the way and expect to have the capacity to store 400,000 doses at a time.
UC Davis is among 7 California hospitals set to receive a portion of California's first 327,000 allotted doses.
The shipments are already in transit by ground and air in a massive national logistical undertaking.
FedEx workers loaded containers that held boxes of vaccines packed in dry ice and thermal boxes into planes in Grand rapids, Michigan and Memphis, Tennessee on Sunday. The company is responsible for delivery in the western part of the country, while UPS is responsible for the east.
"We want to get them to the communities in need as fast as we can," said Richard W. Smith, Fedex Americas Region President.
Pfizer officials said each box of vaccines is equipped with GPS and a thermal sensor so they can be tracked as they make their way to 145 sites across all 50 states by Monday.
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