The Moderna Vaccine Arrives

The Moderna vaccines are here. At least the first batch.

A driver from Orange arrived at New Haven’s health department on meadow Street Wednesday afternoon with the first 1,000 doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine. City Director of Public Nursing Jennifer Vazquez is pictured with the delivery.

Now the city is preparing to begin administering the first shots on Monday.

An earlier version of htis story, with details of the plan, follows.

1K Moderna Vaccines Headed Our Way

The city’s health department expects to receive its first shipment of 1,000 doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine Wednesday — and will begin vaccinating health care workers, firefighters, paramedics and nurses, starting Monday.

City Health Director Maritza Bond gave those updates Tuesday afternoon during a Covid-19 virtual press briefing hosted on Zoom and YouTube Live.

The announcement came one week after Yale New Haven Hospital received its first nearly 1,950 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and kicked off its own staff vaccination program.

Bond said at Tuesday’s update that the city plans to begin vaccinating its own eligible employees as well as other, interested local health care workers next week out of a clinic at the health department’s headquarters at 54 Meadow St.

Connecticut is expecting to receive 63,300 doses of the newly approved Moderna vaccine this week, in addition to the 31,200 doses of the Pfizer vaccine received by the state last week and an additional 24,375 Pfizer dozes expected this week.

Bond said Tuesday that the city’s health department is one of 19 municipal health departments approved by the state to receive and begin administering Moderna vaccines as early as tomorrow.

During the presser, Bond repeated explanations she had provided earlier this month about why the city would be administering the Moderna vaccine but leaving the Pfizer vaccine to hospitals: The former has a shelf life of 30 days and can be refrigerated at ‑20 degrees Celsius. The latter has a shelf life of five days and must be stored in a freezer at ‑70 degrees Celsius.

In between Wednesday’s receipt of the vaccines and next Monday’s planned kick off of the 54 Meadow St. clinic, Bond said, the health department will be ​“developing fact sheets and posters that are being distributed to first responders and the general public,” and will be training nurses how to use the electronic database for managing who gets vaccinated when.

Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines require two doses in order to be maximally efficient at warding off the novel coronavirus. Patients who receive the Moderna vaccine must receive two doses separated by 28 days. Patients who receive the Pfizer vaccine have to wait 21 days between doses.

“Tomorrow, our dedication is going to be on receiving, inventorying, making sure everything is in order” in advance of Monday’s clinic.

Elicker (pictured) said that some of the categories of workers eligible to receive the first doses administered by the health department next week include city nurses and city firefighters, who are all trained EMTs and are therefore medical first responders.

The local health department clinic will be open to more than just city workers, he said. Any local health care workers who fall under the state’s Phase 1A category of eligibility can register and getting vaccinated by the city.

Anyone interested and eligible in getting vaccinated by the city must first register in advance through the VAMS online system.

Elicker said that the number of city employees who fall into the Phase 1A eligibility category is ​“much less than 1,000.”

Bond was asked if the current first shipment of 1,000 doses puts the city on track to reach its goal of vaccinating 100 people a day. She responded that the health department will do an assessment within the first 14 days of beginning vaccinations to see if the city is reaching its 100-person-per-day capacity.

“This is going to be our first initial supply,” she said. ​“Once we start getting a reduction of supply, we will be able to replenish” through another order put in with the state.

Elicker said that the city has seen a total of 6,721 local Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, including 142 related fatalities.

The city currently has a positive case rate of 51.8 Covid-19 cases per 100,000 residents, Bond said.

As of Tuesday, there are 198 Covid-positive in-patients at Yale New Haven Hospital, including 52 Covid patients in local Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds. Overall, the local hospital bed occupancy is at 71 percent, and the local ICU occupancy is at 85 percent — with 185 of 218 beds currently filled.