FAYETTEVILLE -- The city's Board of Health is worried about the coordinated response to administer the first round of covid-19 vaccines set to arrive in a few weeks.
The board of local physicians and medical professionals met Wednesday online via Zoom. Marti Sharkey, the city's public health officer, said about 90,000 doses of covid-19 vaccine from drugmaker Pfizer are to hit the state in mid-December. Five hospitals, including Washington Regional Medical Center, will receive shares of the first shipment, she said.
The Arkansas Department of Health expanded who will receive the vaccine to three groups: health care employees and staff members, and first responders; essential workers such as educators, grocery store employees and meatpacking plant workers; and people at high risk, such as residents in group homes or congregate settings and those 65 or older. Sharkey said she believes college students in residence halls would be included in that third group.
It is unclear how many doses each hospital will receive, Sharkey said. Health care workers who do not work for a hospital will have to get the vaccine at a pharmacy, she said, although which pharmacies or how many is not known.
A committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is scheduled to discuss a request for emergency authorization for Pfizer's vaccine Dec. 10. Shipments could begin within a few days after that, Sharkey said.
Board Chairman Hershey Garner with Highlands Oncology said he couldn't see how pharmacies alone would have the capacity to vaccinate the first group of health care workers, considering how soon shipments are likely to begin. Sharkey said she plans to get in contact with Washington County Emergency Manager John Luther.
"We're behind the eight-ball, to say the very least, as far as figuring out the logistics of this," she said.
Stephen Boss, professor of environmental dynamics and sustainability at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville showed the board a model that indicated a vaccine may speed up the decline of new cases by about two months. However, covid-19 will stick around for a long time, just at a lower level, he said.
"All the stuff we've been missing for a year, that's going to have to continue for some time as we're in a vaccination program, until we get enough people get vaccinated that we can knock down the pandemic," Boss said.
So far, Washington County has seen 227 deaths from covid-19, Washington County Coroner Roger Morris told the board. Morris' numbers differ slightly from the state's number, 176, because institutions bring in people from other nearby states and counties. He said his office bought a morgue trailer because deaths overall are about 300 more than they were at the same time last year.
"Let's pray that we don't have to use it," Morris said.
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