Vaccine reaches St. Anthony hospital; critical medical workers getting first shots

The first COVID-19 vaccines reached St. Anthony Hospital in Gig Harbor last week, according to CHI Franciscan, and medical workers there are being vaccinated in stages.

“Overall it’s been going well, knock on wood,” said Dr. Francis Mercado, who is charge of 29 primary care clinics and 11 women’s health centers in Washington, including St. Anthony.

Mercado said CHI Franciscan had received about 2,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine on Wednesday, Dec. 16 and expected to receive the first doses of the newly approved Moderna vaccine this week.

Critical medical workers who deal directly with coronavirus patients at St. Anthony are being vaccinated first, he said.

“As we progress through our prioritization, we’ll gradually extend vaccination to at-risk health-care workers and eventually patients as well, especially at-risk patients.” At-risk patients include the elderly and those with existing conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease.

By Friday of last week, CHI Franciscan had vaccinated 1,200 health care workers at St. Anthony, St. Joseph Hospital in Tacoma, and St. Ann Hospital in Burien, Mercado said.

It will be a while before the vaccine reaches the general population, Mercado said. Local health departments and the Center for Disease Control are still discussing how it should be distributed.

“We want to focus first on our health-care workers who have direct contact with COVID-19 patients,” he said. “And we are progressing through that list very quickly, and we’ll be getting to the more general population slowly and surely.”

Even getting the vaccine to the hospitals is taking special measures, Mercado said, because the Pfizer vaccine needs to be kept at 70 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

“We’ve been preparing for this for about the last six weeks, making sure we have the proper freezers and the monitoring equipment,” he said. “The Pfizer vaccine is delicate, and we never want to break that temperature chain. Even when we transport it to the hospitals by car, we use special insulated containers packed with dry ice.”

Safety measures against COVID-19 transmission, including masking and social distancing, will continue at St. Anthony and other hospitals even after all workers have been vaccinated,” Mercado noted.

“We’re still expecting everyone to mask up,” he said.

Mercado added that “These vaccines were carefully reviewed by the FDA and have been deemed safe and effective. I myself with be vaccinated, and will be vaccinating my colleagues. But we all have to wait our turn.”

This story was originally published December 21, 2020 at 5:30 AM.