Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center won’t be part of the first wave of COVID-19 vaccinations, the hospital staff learned Monday morning.
Rather than receiving an allocation of the Pfizer vaccine, 25,000 units of which arrived in Mississippi on Monday, the McComb hospital will be receiving the Moderna vaccine after its anticipated authorization next week.
SMRMC was originally slated to get a shipment of the Pfizer shot.
“There were some unexpected changes and adjustments had to be made,” reads an email to SMRMC from Mississippi State Department of Health’s Office of Immunization Director Jennifer Fulcher. “We appreciate your flexibility as we work through these initial rounds of vaccine. You will now receive 200 doses of Moderna product.”
Moderna is a two-dose vaccine like Pfizer but has a four-week gap between the two doses compared to Pfizer’s three weeks.
Moderna doesn’t require the extreme cold storage that Pfizer’s vaccine does.
SMRMC will receive 200 shots of the first dose; the second dose will follow in a separate shipment.
Fulcher said the Moderna vaccine will likely receive emergency use authorization from the FDA, the same authorization given to Pfizer, on Dec. 18.
After that, SMRMC’s order can be placed once the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices releases its recommendations, expected Monday, Dec. 21.
Hospital staff met in video conference to change their plans accordingly.
“We are prepared to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine to all of our front line providers as soon as we receive our doses from the Department of Health,” SMRMC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kevin Richardson said Monday afternoon.
State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs became the first person vaccinated against COVID-19 in Mississippi on live Zoom call that same afternoon.
“It’s a big day. It’s one for which we are extremely excited,” Dobbs said before rolling up his sleeve.
The entire experience for Dobbs lasted right at a minute, from health department nurse Lois Moore’s preparation of the needle to her swabbing Dobbs’ arm after it was done.
“It felt like a butterfly. A little bit of a sting. Not bad,” Dobbs said.
He fist-bumped Moore on his way out, as State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers walked in to get his vaccine next.
Only five hospitals in the state had received their allocated Pfizer doses on Monday — the five with sufficient cold storage to hold their entire allocated shipment, Dobbs said.
The rest of the first wave was expected to make it to hospitals in the next day or two, Byers said.
He and Dobbs chose to get the shot live on camera to show their faith in the safety of “a vaccine that is not only extremely effective based on the clinical studies but also seems to have a very favorable side effect profile,” Dobbs said.
He said people who take the vaccine can expect some inflammation of the area where the needle is administered and some soreness or fatigue, but nothing outside the ordinary reaction to other vaccines.
All vaccines will go to health care workers at first, particularly those with high exposure or who work closely with COVID-19 patients. Over the next couple weeks, nursing home residents will start getting vaccinated.
Dobbs and Byers agreed with an estimate from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci that non-healthcare, lower-risk citizens will likely be able to get the vaccine by March or early April.
However, essential workers will likely get a higher priority than that, meaning much of Mississippi may already be vaccinated before then, Dobbs said.
Although the arrival of vaccines is a step in the right direction, Dobbs warned that due to high rates of transmission there will still likely be many more hospitalizations before cases start to decrease.
“It’s not going to have a big impact over the next few weeks. We will not have enough people immunized to effect population transmission,” he said.
Therefore, he continued to warn against holiday gatherings as Christmas approaches.
“Big Christmas parties lead to big COVID outbreaks, unfortunately,” he said.
Since Friday, 5,813 new cases of COVID-19 were reported statewide by MSDH.
In Southwest Mississippi, Pike County added 46 new cases, Amite County added 27, Franklin County added 31, Walthall County added 21, Lawrence County added 19, Lincoln County added 54 and Wilkinson added eight.
None of those seven counties reported any new COVID-19-related deaths.
