BY SYDNEY HOOVER
After eight months on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic, local health officials have begun preparations for distributing vaccines to residents as national trial results begin rolling out.
Moderna, a Massachusetts-based biotechnology company, released preliminary results showing its vaccine to be 94.5% effective, The New York Times reported Tuesday. This adds the company to the list with Pfizer and BioNTech, which released similar data last week.
At a meeting Monday evening, Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health representatives outlined plans for distributing vaccines once they are approved.
“We’re pretty much at the tail end of our planning for all of that,” said Public Health Director Dan Partridge. “This is planning that starts at the federal level and goes down to the state and then down to us at the county level, so layers of planning on this.”
Partridge said prioritization for the vaccine will begin with residents in long-term care facilities. He said they will be able to receive vaccines from a pharmacy such as CVS within the next two months. After that, the next priority group includes health care workers, who will receive the vaccine directly through local hospitals.
Mass vaccination sites will be set up throughout the county after that. Health officials anticipate a vaccine available to the general public around April, and Partridge said he anticipates the vaccination process will look similar to that during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009. He said residents have frequently expressed interest in a drive-thru vaccination site, similar to coronavirus testing and drive-thru flu vaccinations.
The public health department put out a survey for Douglas County residents in October to gauge willingness to receive a vaccine once one has been FDA-approved. It also asked about decision-making factors and preferences for vaccination resources and locations in the county.
Alex Kimball-Williams, a health equity planner for Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, said the county wants to be as prepared as it can in sharing information about a potential vaccine.
“We definitely want to begin being proactive,” Kimball-Williams said. “A lot of the national surveys and research that our team was doing showed that early messaging, you know, clearing up misconceptions and getting clear, transparent information out to populations was very helpful.”
The survey closed Nov. 4. As of Monday, there were no preliminary results from the survey available, but Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health spokesman George Diepenbrock said he hopes there will be some data released soon.
Kimball-Williams said much of the survey is to determine differences among various populations.
She said in order to get as many people vaccinated as possible, they would look at these differences between racial and ethnic demographics, as well as socio-economic status and
access to health care.
“Anything, of course that we can do to make the cost free or close to free is obviously going to be something that we're very concerned with, too,” Kimball-Williams said.
Hopes for a vaccine in the near future come as Douglas County hits its worst spikes in positive cases since the pandemic started. The county’s 14-day moving average of positive cases sat around 13% as of Monday, with Eudora’s average at 21.5% — the highest in the county, with Lecompten at 18.9%, Baldwin City at 15.1% and Lawrence at 12.3%.
Diepenbrock said the spike is in part due to social gatherings where masks are not being worn. He said travel is a big concern with Thanksgiving coming up and residents are encouraged to make “safe and smart” holiday plans.
“It's a wake up call a little bit and a reminder that, you know, get back to the basics and things that we have done well over the last several months, especially to keep it under control so that we can hopefully get our numbers back down,” Diepenbrock said.
The public health department created a webpage for residents to view recommendations for Thanksgiving gatherings and travel. The department recommends having small gatherings with family members in the same household, having virtual dinners and delivering meals for high-risk individuals stuck at home are good, low-risk options for celebrating the holiday.
Health officials are encouraging residents to avoid having large indoor gatherings, attending parades or other events and Black Friday shopping. Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health’s full holiday guidelines can be found here.
Reach reporter Sydney Hoover at eudoratimes@gmail.com.
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