AUSTIN (KXAN) — Local ICU doctors, emergency room and hospital staff in Central Texas are eagerly awaiting the first shipments of the COVID-19 vaccine, now that the federal government has approved emergency use for the first vaccine in the United States.
For many frontline healthcare workers, help can’t come soon enough. Death has been a constant for ICU physicians like Dr. Jordan Weingarten, who works at Ascension Seton Medical Center in Austin and is the medical director for the ICU. Just this week, Austin-Travis County surpassed a grim milestone of losing more than 500 people to COVID-19.
“It’s hard to have large numbers of patients, where you are watching them die despite everything you do, and at times not being able to do anything more for them,” said Weingarten. “We have people in their 20s who are on life support, on ventilators, on artificial lung machines, that we are trying to keep alive.”
Working in the ICU, Weingarten will be among the first in line to receive the COVID-19 vaccine—he hopes by next Friday.
“I have a 13-member group that takes care of COVID-19 patients in the ICU, and 100% of us are signing up for the vaccine,” said Weingarten.
The Texas Department of State Health Services expects to have vaccines arrive in the Austin-Travis County area by early next week. Many doses are already in shipping warehouses, set to be sent out within 24 hours of approval. The doses will first go to frontline medical workers who volunteered to get the vaccine, and the state is currently working to determine the next groups that will get the vaccine, including higher risk individuals.
“There are about 1.6 million of those healthcare workers, so it will take a few weeks to get them vaccinated, and there are about 300,000 long-term care residents as well, so it will take a few weeks to work through this group and move through these next tiers,” said Chris Van Deusen, a spokesperson for DSHS. “It will take a few months to get to everybody who wants to get vaccinated in the state.”
Baylor Scott & White and St. David’s HealthCare said they’ve been preparing for vaccine distributions for a while now. Both expect to start giving interested workers vaccinations as soon as next week.
St. David’s said vaccines will be administered to workers who deal with directly with COVID-19 patients first. When more doses are sent out, more hospital staff will be able to get the shot.
Credit: Source link
