Health Dept. places first order for COVID-19 vaccine, expects it to arrive mid-December

The Utah Department of Health recently tweeted out a video of department officials placing the state’s first order of a COVID-19 vaccine. The department said it expects the order, which will be immediately distributed to hospitals, to be delivered around Dec. 15.

“These doses will be shipped directly to hospitals in Utah as soon as the FDA formally approves the vaccine,” the department’s tweet said.

Officials placed the order after leaders from two of Utah’s largest healthcare providers said they expected the first rounds of the COVID-19 vaccine to be administered to frontline workers at five of Utah’s largest hospitals by mid-December. The first rounds will be given to frontline staff at LDS Hospital and University Hospital in Salt Lake City, Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah Valley Hospital in Provo, and the Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George.

Dr. Jeanmarie Mayer, chief of infection prevention at University of Utah Health, and Dr. Kristin Dascomb, medical director of infection prevention employee health at Intermountain Healthcare, said that the first round of doses will be distributed shortly after the Pfizer vaccine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA was to have voted on an Emergency Use Authorization approval for the vaccine on Dec. 10.

Upon FDA approval, high-risk frontline staff like doctors, nurses, technicians and environmental service housekeeping workers close to COVID-19 patients will get the first round of doses, Mayer and Dascomb explained.

“It’s just so incredibly important to make sure that we keep our healthcare systems intact and able to care for the most vulnerable in our populations,” Mayer said. “We’re really targeting those healthcare personnel that have been on the frontline taking care of our COVID patients since March.”