About 41,400 health workers have received covid-19 vaccines since last week, Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine said on Wednesday.
Levine said that hospitals are vaccinating their own employees and are also responsible for administering doses to health workers in their communities who are not affiliated with hospitals – including emergency medical service workers, non-affiliated doctors and other line workers front. She instructed hospitals to contact external agencies and start coordinating their vaccinations.
“Because hospitals can vaccinate their high-risk workers, it is very important that they continue to vaccinate health workers who face the same risks in their own workplaces,” she said.
While EMS workers wear personal protective equipment, Levine said, “they are entering unknown situations and are really our first responders”
Immunizations are likely to pick up even more speed now that the Modern vaccine is also circulating, said Levine. The doses of Moderna will be sent to more rural hospitals in the state, which may not have the capacity of the deep-frozen freezer that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine requires.
Levine said the government is still working on plans to distribute vaccines to priority groups, including inmates and the broad category of “essential workers”. Residents and long-term employees will begin receiving vaccines Monday through a partnership between the federal government, Pharmacy CVS and Walgreens.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week published new guidelines for group “1b”, another layer of the population receiving priority vaccinations that includes people over 75, essential frontline workers and some other groups. Levine said that Pennsylvania is revising its own distribution plan to comply with CDC guidance.
“We are working on how we are going to do this. We are planning to partner with many different entities to make these vaccines, ”said Levine, saying the Department of Health is likely to work with pharmacies and healthcare providers and may set up some mass vaccination clinics.
The speed with which the state can vaccinate everyone who needs and wants will depend largely on how many doses Pennsylvania receives from the federal government, she said, and it will be months before there is enough to immunize the general public.
“What this indicates,” said Levine, “is how important it is for all of us during the holidays – Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year – that we have to stay on course and avoid big and small meetings and stay home and be with our families remotely. I know it is a tremendous sacrifice, but it is what we need to do to stop the spread and ensure that there is no further recovery in January. ”
Levine said she and Governor Tom Wolf are looking at case levels to determine whether additional mitigation strategies are needed after the current order expires on January 4.
There are currently 6,142 covid-19 patients hospitalized across the state, with 1,263 in intensive care and 764 on ventilators, according to the Pennsylvania covid data panel. The state registered 9,605 new cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number of cases to 581,156. There were 230 new deaths reported, bringing the total across the state to 14,442 deaths by covid.
Teghan Simonton is a staff writer for the Tribune-Review. You can contact Teghan at 724-226-4680, [email protected] or via Twitter .
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