Across the country on Monday, the first doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine made their way to frontline healthcare workers and long-term care facility staffers. Dr. Rebecca Weintraub from Boston’s Ariadne Labs called it “a landmark day,” during a Monday interview on Boston Public Radio.
Weintraub heads the lab's COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery initiative, which helped produce a guide for policy makers sorting out the complex process of distributing millions of coronavirus vaccines efficiently and effectively. She was also instrumental in creating a New York Times interactive guide that allowed users to determine roughly where they land in a vaccine timeline, and used her 20 minutes on Monday's show to help clear up some confusion about the process of getting the country (and the world) immunized.
Weintraub began with a shout-out to state epidemiologists and health commissioners for working hard to organize their own independent strategies "with quite generic advice and guidance from the federal government." She added that she hopes "we can ensure that they become the front-line rockstars of this moment."
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Still, she also noted that because of the rush, a majority of providers and public health officials have been forced to sort out distribution details as they go along. "They are truly scrambling today" she said.
Some aspects have been straightforward. In every state throughout the U.S., the first groups to get Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine will be frontline healthcare workers, and staff and residents at long-term health facilities. In Massachusetts, details about the rollout from Gov. Charlie Baker's administration were released to the public last Wednesday.
Other elements, like determining how vaccine candidates are vetted, are less clear. "Our hope is that we’ll be able to trust the American public and all those who want the vaccine to find their pace in line and use tools like the New York Times piece, as well as others that will be coming out, to understand ‘I’m part of this cohort, I understand my place ... and by taking a place further in the back in the line, I’m protecting those in front of me,'" she said.
