Vaccines should arrive next week in Union-area counties

While some Iowa counties received shipments of the first COVID-19 vaccines on Monday, Henry, Jefferson and Washington counties will have to wait at least another week.

Those three counties are slated to receive shipments of the Moderna vaccine, which is expected to receive federal approval later this week, while those who received vaccines Monday received the Pfizer vaccine, which was approved late last week.

'We are slated to get the Moderna vaccine, provided it gets the stamp of approval later this week,” Jefferson County Public Health Director Christine Estle said Monday morning.

Henry County Public Health Director Shelley Van Dorin and Washington County Public Health Director Danielle Pettit-Majewski both confirmed that their counties also will receive the Moderna vaccine once it has been approved.

Although they will have to wait a little longer than those counties receiving the Pfizer vaccine, public health directors said that there are advantages to the Moderna vaccine.

Van Dorin explained that the Moderna vaccine does not have to be stored in 'ultra cold” - around -100 degrees Fahrenheit - conditions and does not have to be reconstituted before giving the vaccine.

'We'll have much better capacity to store the vaccine,” Pettit-Majewski said.

Washington County expects to receive an allotment of 800 doses, while Henry and Jefferson counties will receive 600 and 500 doses respectively.

When the first round of shipments arrive, the people who will receive the first vaccinations are health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities. This group is called 'Phase 1A.”

For weeks, counties have been working to submit information to the federal government to help determine their allotment of vaccinations.

'We looked at our total population, our nursing home population and the number of health care workers we have,” Estle said.

They are also putting together plans for the vaccination rollout.

Van Dorin said that if the county receives its shipment on Dec. 21 as scheduled, they will start administering vaccines to health care workers during a clinic for health care providers on Dec. 22.

'It will be first-come first-served,” Van Dorin said. 'Letters have gone out to health care providers.”

Pettit-Majewski said that they are still working on plans for Washington County.

'There's still a lot we don't know, because we don't have all the specifics,” she said. 'We're doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work to plan for the clinics.

'We're focusing on planning so we can meet the needs of the individuals in Phase 1A.”

The vaccines will have to be administered in two doses, with the second dose coming 28 days after the first dose.

All three public health directors said that they will not have to split up their initial allotments of the vaccine.

'By the time we need the second round, we'll have another allotment,” Van Dorin said.