Although a promising coronavirus vaccine is expected to get federal approval this week, health care officials are warning that it could be months before everyone gets access to it, even as the number of cases and hospitalizations set records across North Georgia.
The first doses of the vaccine by Pfizer could be available by next week, but officials at Northeast Georgia Health System said frontline health care workers and residents and employees of long-term care facilities will be first in line for the shots.
"Hopefully by sometime in late spring, early summer, we'll be ready to vaccinate the healthy adult population," Dr. Zachary Taylor, District 2 director for the Georgia Department of Public Health, told on online forum sponsored by the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce.
News of the expected emergency approval of the Pfizer vaccine by the Food and Drug Administration comes as cases are spiking. As of Wednesday morning, 217 confirmed COVID cases were admitted to NGHS's hospitals and long-term care facilities. Only one ICU bed is available systemwide. It is in Gainesville.
The number of daily infections in Georgia soared more than 70 percent in the past week.
A second vaccine by Moderna will be considered by FDA regulators later this month.
Officials said they do not know the exact number of doses that Georgia will receive, so final plans on how to distribute the vaccine are still being worked out. But Melissa Frank, the pharmacy director for Northeast Georgia Health System, said North Georgia will certainly get a portion of the doses.
"Whatever comes to the state then has to be allocated across the state, and so we'll get a piece of that," she said. "The CDC has done a nice job of giving us some recommendations on how to prioritize health care workers, and really the general population. … We are working on distribution plans here within the health system to make sure we are offering the vaccine to the highest risk people."
Taylor said that the expected priority of health care workers, long-term care facility residents, elderly with underlying health concerns and then others with underlying conditions will cover almost half the U.S. population, but he said people will still need to remain vigilant for several more months. He said mask wearing and social distancing should continue, even after the rollout of the vaccine.
"I think a lot of the stuff we're doing we will still be doing for quite awhile even after we roll out the vaccination because there won't be enough people vaccinated in the community for quite some time," Dr. John Delzell, the system's vice president of medical education, said.
Meanwhile, the surge is cases in beginning to strain hospital resources.
"We're full," said Dr. Clifton Hastings, the health system's chief of the medical staff.
Hastings said the hospitals are continuing perform most elective surgeries at this time, particularly outpatient surgeries, since the patient goes home the same day. But he said surgeries that require more than four days of hospitalization may be delayed because of a lack of bed space. And even on surgeries that are performed, the patient may spend an extended time in the recovery room until bed space is available.
