The second approved vaccine to combat COVID-19 began arriving in Connecticut on Monday as a state advisory panel met to discuss who gets vaccinated next.
Workers at Hartford Hospital began unloading 8,800 doses of the Moderna vaccine shortly after 10:30 a.m. to the applause of health care workers.
Critical care nurse Mandy Delgado was the first at the hospital to get a Moderna shot, saying she was hopeful vaccinations will eventually lead to fewer patients being admitted with the virus.
“Working in critical care, I’ve been exhausted, overwhelmed, seeing patients come in needing more oxygen and able to talk and progressively getting worse, then actually dying, and families not being there,” she said.
Gov. Ned Lamont said the state expects to receive 63,300 doses of the Moderna vaccine this week as well as 24,375 doses of the Pfizer vaccine. That is in addition to the 31,200 doses of the Pfizer vaccine the state received last week, Lamont said.
The doses arriving this week are targeted for front-line health care workers and those in nursing homes.
The governor said 7,761 doses were administered in the first week, including staff and residents at nine nursing homes. He expects vaccinations to be completed at 75 nursing homes (about a third of those in Connecticut) by the end of this week.
Eric Arlia, Hartford HealthCare’s director of Pharmacy Systems, said the Moderna vaccine is easier to store than the Pfizer vaccine, because while it must be frozen, it does not need to be kept in ultra-cold storage. He said that once thawed, it can be kept in a refrigerator for up to 30 days before being used.
“It’s just a lot easier for us to handle,” he said, while unpacking a box of the vaccine on the hospital’s loading dock. “Really, the big difference in that is that it can be put in a lot of different clinic settings, outside of hospitals.”
Josh Geballe, Lamont’s chief operating officer, has said roughly 240,000 health care workers and nursing home residents and staff should be fully vaccinated by the end of January, assuming 80% of people in those groups agree to get a shot.
The governor’s vaccine advisory panel met Monday to discuss recommendations by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for subsequent phases of vaccinations.
A CDC panel has recommended that states next vaccinate teachers, first responders, child care workers, food, agricultural and grocery story employers, correctional staff, public transit workers, postal workers, those in manufacturing and people over the age of 75.
Lamont said those people would likely begin getting shots by the end of January. Others, including those with high-risk medical conditions, those between 65 and 74, and prisoners likely will have to wait until spring, Lamont said.
The state hopes to vaccinate everyone who wishes to get the two-shot regimen by next fall.
The state advisory group plans to meet again next week to discuss whether or not to tweak the CDC recommendations.
“I think so far the CDC guidance makes some sense to me,” Lamont said.
In other coronavirus-related news:
BUSINESS GRANTS
The governor said the new federal stimulus package will allow the state to offer $35 million in new business recovery grants targeted at small and mid-size companies, including restaurants and bars.
The grant sizes will range between $10,000 and $30,000 and are expected to be given to between 1,500 and 2,000 businesses with checks going out by the end of the month.
David Lehman, the commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Community, said they will be looking at employment, wage, sales and other data to determine who gets the grants.
“It is not going to be first-come, first-serve,” he said.
BY THE NUMBERS
The governor’s office reported 95 additional coronavirus-related deaths over the weekend, bringing the state’s total to 5,676.
Hospitalizations dropped by 24 to 1,143.
The latest 7-day positivity rate in Connecticut stood at 6.39% on Sunday. State health departments are calculating positivity rate differently across the country, but for Connecticut the AP calculates the rate by dividing new cases by test specimens using data from The COVID Tracking Project.
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