Logistics and Impact of Vaccine Distribution
The vaccine rollout from Pfizer started this week and the first doses are already arriving and will be distributed in the coming days. What does that mean for you and your friends, family, and business colleagues? We discuss the logistical challenges of vaccine distribution and review what changes might come from the vaccine rollout
TL;dr continued need for everyone to
😷Wear a mask
📏Stay physically distanced
🚿Practice Good Hygiene
Join Dr Luis Saldana, Fred and myself for our COVID Insights to Action Discussion webinar taking place Wednesday December 9 at 4pm ET. Our training modules are available to help businesses, education facilities and employers get their employees, staff, customers and students back to work and school safely in the context of COVID19
Transcript
Nick van Terheyden
Hi, this is Dr. Nick, I’m the incrementalist here with incremental insights for better business better home.
Fred Goldstein
And I’m Fred Goldstein with accountable health here helping companies along with Nick and others reopen and operate during the COVID kept pandemic as well as helping them think through how to maintain employee health in overall status. So this has been an interesting week, we’re beginning with Nick, an exciting day, the first day of the vaccine going out from Pfizer. I think it’s being distributed actually here in Jacksonville. As we speak, I think the doses are supposed to be delivered by 1130. This morning. So give us your thoughts on the vaccine and where we’re at with it. Well, so first of all, nationwide, I don’t think Jacksonville’s got any exclusive rights to the vaccine, you’ve gotten a certain selection of the doses, we’ve certainly heard that I’ve heard that locally. Obviously, great news, I think there’s differences in the states in terms of their distribution priorities, but for the most part going to healthcare, frontline healthcare workers, so not just anybody in healthcare, but people that are actually dealing with COVID-19 patients.
Nick van Terheyden
You know, first thing to note, there’s not enough, we need to get as many people as possible, there’s not going to be that’s going to create some significant challenges in each of these circumstances. So imagine you have 100 staff that are right on the front line, you’ve only got 50 doses, people are going to have to deal with all of that. And that probably raises the most important point, even if you get the vaccine, and you’ve had both doses, which you know, is at least two to three weeks away from the sort of cycle of that we all have to continue all of the things that we’re doing. So even as this rolls out extensively, one of the most important things is that, you know, we’re gonna have to continue this until we suppress and get this virus out of our community through this sort of, you know, global immunity. And that’s going to be a longer period of time. So none of this changes things. It’s just, it gives us significant hope, which I think is great news. Yeah, to your point, I think it was 3 million doses that were shipped out around the country in this first shipment. And I think, you know, Florida is hoping to get about 180,000 this month is my understanding. And obviously the other states will get them at different rates. But it is an interesting question as you begin to look at it. Okay, so we’ve gotten a few people vaccinated here, but they’re still waiting for their second dose, I assume we’ll see some more doses come through each week or something like that, which will mean new people until they get to that first group then needing their second dose and being in the right time period for that. Yeah, and that’s the other important thing is that we know that, you know, essentially the protocol that has been tested and proven together is to this 95%. efficacy requires two doses that are separated in time. So when you hear that number of 3 million doses, what that really means is, we’ve got one and a half million available, if you assume that, you know, that’s going to be rolled out. Now, obviously, there’s a flow, if there’s another 3 million doses available in you know, two weeks, three weeks time for that second dose, then, you know, those all bets are off. What this creates is a logistical problem and a planning problem that, you know, people are working very hard, extraordinary efforts going on today to sort of get that out. One of the things that you know, is important is that we get that second dose to those individuals to get that high level of immunity. And you know, even at this 95% level, which I think everybody is familiar with. That means that there are still 5% of people so you could get the vaccine, you could be in that 5%. Now, of course, human nature says I got the vaccine, therefore I must be in the 95% category. And I’m immune. Until we get this circumstance under control. We all have to assume and continue to behave in this coordinated fashion. But this rollout is going to go on. And I think we’re going to see a ramping up of all of those numbers.
Fred Goldstein
Yeah, and it’s interesting when you think about this from a tracking perspective, you’ve got the initial tracking of the doses going out and maintaining all that supply chain and everything and then you’ve got the individual tracking I got my first dose, well, we got to remind him to get my second dose, oh, we missed the second dose, and all of those things. And when you begin to think about that across hundreds of millions of people, obviously, just the database to do that, and to begin to keep up with it all creates all kinds of situations about who monitors it, who do they call and all of that. And it’s going to be fascinating to watch this come out and see how we do that. And perhaps there are better ways to do it that some states or others have figured out that hopefully, we’ll learn from quickly that we can then apply to this situation. So we can ultimately get there. And then obviously, once you put modern out, then you have two vaccines out there, and you can’t get one of each. So those have to be tracked separately, and on and on.
Nick van Terheyden
Now, I know there are people out there who go Oh, this is a fantastic, I love these kind of problems, not like a problem like that I’m really excited about just because I’m really bad at it, I can’t do it even in my own home. You know, just to give people a sense of the level of complexity. So you know, this is the cold storage, we talked about dry eyes, minus 70. And you know, the distribution of them getting into these low temperature freezes. One of the things that I read today was the F. FAA issued a a warning notice to airlines, about the carriage of these vaccines in cold storage, specifically, because we’re using dry ice. So that’s carbon dioxide that has solidified it comes in blocks, if you’ve never had the fun of you know, putting that into a bucket of water and seeing all the smoke. That’s how smoke generators and it used to work. We’ve got other systems now but but the warning came out because the dry sublimate. So it turns into gas quicker at elevations. And that can potentially overwhelmed systems in aircraft clearing out you can be poisoned by carbon dioxide. So they have to be especially alert to that because that could create problems. That’s just one of the multitude of issues of the people dealing with them the tracking. So extraordinary challenge, but we will achieve this and do so successfully.
Fred Goldstein
Yeah, that’s a fascinating issue raised, I hadn’t even thought of the airlines and carbon dioxide poisoning or something like that, you know, as you get the rates up too high. So one more thing that somebody has thought about and is working to deal with, which is really fantastic. So they said, it’ll be interesting to watch this thing come out over the next couple of weeks and months. Obviously, I look at and say, Well, I don’t meet any of those risk categories. And I know some people have been looking themselves up. And there’s some tools out there in the internet to do that. But very important start we’ve got this week, and hopefully we’ll see this continue to roll out successfully and get to some point where we ultimately achieve that herd immunity via vaccine.
Nick van Terheyden
Absolutely. So I think, you know, tremendous hope. I think one of the things that this vaccine or vaccines has given us His light at the end of the tunnel, which you know, was potentially lacking from this whole challenge, not something that I certainly envisaged as happening, but we’re going to see it and I think that’s great means.
Fred Goldstein
Yeah, and I think just as you mentioned earlier, it’s important for everybody to recognize this is still early. This is not the solution today, we have to really be diligent in our following through with wearing masks, keeping ourselves distance washing our hands. And particularly for those who are elderly at risk groups, they may want to really limit their indoor activities as the CDC mentioned in the past week. We’re seeing numbers skyrocket right now. And it’s rather frustrating from my point of view to see that. So once again, Nick, it’s another fantastic week here with our COVID insights and really enjoy guy hear your comments.
Nick van Terheyden
Fantastic. So this is Dr. Nick on the incrementalist here with incremental insights for better business better health.
