State submits coronavirus vaccine campaign plan, meets CDC deadline

The Utah Department of Health met the Center for Disease Control’s Oct. 16 deadline for submitting its plans for a statewide COVID-19 vaccine campaign. The submission deadline was Oct. 16.

Utah’s state immunization director, Rich Lakin of the Utah Department of Health, said the state will be ready to distribute a vaccine when it is ready. “This is going to be the largest vaccination campaign that we have ever done,” said Lakin. “We’re trying to do it in an efficient manner, yet trying to do it as quickly as possible, which makes it difficult.”

The Utah COVID-19 Vaccination Plan is a 46-page document that details how Utahns will get immunized when a vaccine is approved. Lakin said availability of the vaccine will dictate the pace of the rollout. The CDC told states to be ready to vaccinate by Nov. 1, Lakin said.

The greatest complication, according to Lakin, is not knowing anything about the vaccine itself because none has been approved. “We’re doing everything that we need to plan, yet we only have a little bit of information about the vaccine itself,” he said. Lakin said the CDC has told the state that the first doses could arrive anytime between mid-November and January.

As the first limited doses arrive, the four major hospitals on the Wasatch Front with the greatest number of healthcare workers and COVID-19 patients will get the vaccine to vaccinate workers and other priority groups. Those hospitals are the University of Utah Hospital and LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City, Intermountain Medical Center in Murray and Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo.

“The key thing that people need to remember is that the vaccine is going to drive the response,” Lakin said. “If we have limited vaccine, we have limited vaccine in who we can give that response to. If we start to get a moderate amount of vaccine, we can broaden that vaccine distribution.” Lakin expects wide distribution to be available “probably around summertime.”