Behind the scenes of the COVID vaccine: Carefully choreographed hope in Charlotte
The brown UPS truck arrived outside the hospital Thursday morning, packed with boxes and packages bound for Charlotte and beyond.
The ordinary delivery truck was carrying a special load: 3,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines.
Inside Novant Health’s Presbyterian Medical Center at 10:15 a.m., doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care workers were ready to accept their first shipment of the most reliable hope North Carolina has to return to normal amid a raging pandemic.
Already, front-line health care workers are receiving the vaccine in Charlotte and across the country.
The delivery was the second this week in Charlotte, with Atrium Health receiving a batch on Monday, and 4,000 other doses went to Novant facilities across the state on Thursday.
The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines were packaged securely with dry ice to ensure the shipment would be kept at constant ultra-low temperatures.
As the vaccines were unloaded from the ultra-cold delivery box, Novant workers had to move fast: They have only five minutes to transport the vaccines to the hospital’s freezer, explained a spokeswoman.
Then, the waiting began.
The vaccines can be stored in the freezers for five days, Novant pharmacy operations manager Brad Petersen told reporters Thursday. He held a vial in his cusped hand — the container smaller than his pinkie finger.
Before anyone could get the shot, the liquid inside had to thaw, which takes several hours. Then, the hospital diluted the vaccine with a saline solution — and the race against time started again.
Once diluted, Petersen explained, the vaccine is good for six hours.
Dr. Samuel Dartey-Hayford, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Novant Health Presbyterian, was the first person to receive a vaccine at Novant on Thursday. Pharmacy resident Kayla Askey administered the shot.
Dartey-Hayford was also one of the first people at Novant to care for critically sick COVID-19 patients in the ICU, he told reporters after getting the shot.
Mecklenburg County reported its first positive coronavirus test from a resident on March 12. Seventeen days later came the first COVID-19 casualty: a 60-year-old county resident.
In the nine months that followed, nearly 54,000 people in Mecklenburg have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and, as of Thursday night, 508 have died.
Working in the ICU in the beginning of the pandemic in North Carolina was “disheartening and a little psychologically frustrating,” Dartey-Hayford said. That’s because doctors didn’t know exactly how to help patients.
“We lost quite a number of patients, young people, older people, middle-aged,” he said.
Hospitals are now seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases from Thanksgiving gatherings, Dartey-Hayford said. He urged Charlotte residents to stay home, wear masks and continue social distancing, even over the holidays.
Health officials have warned the vaccine will not help prevent a spike in cases from Christmas gatherings at this point.
But the vaccine does give many doctors hope, a glimpse of what could lead to the end of the pandemic.
And Thursday morning, as Dartey-Hayford waited for his shot, Novant physicians lined the hallways clapping and cheering.
“I feel great,” Dartey-Hayford said minutes after getting vaccinated. “I feel great.”
More vaccines at Atrium
Atrium Health’s first shipment of Pfizer vaccines arrived on Monday, with the rest of the weekly allocation delivered on Thursday. That’s a total of 12,675 doses, said Kevin Isaacs of Atrium’s Pharmacy Services.
Those doses are spread out over multiple Atrium facilities in different counties, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. North Carolina health officials have said they expect hospitals across the state will get weekly shipments.
The first round of vaccines will all go to health care workers, according to the state’s vaccination plan. After health care workers are vaccinated, the state is prioritizing long-term care residents and staff for vaccinations.
The vaccines come in what are known as “thermal shippers.”
Hospital officials have a 24-hour window to transfer the vaccine into ultra-cold freezers — but once the shipper is opened, the doses must be in freezers within five minutes, Isaacs said. Those freezers then need to stay closed for two hours to preserve the temperature.
And when it’s time for people to get vaccinated, officials — donning personal protective equipment — have only three minutes to retrieve the right number of vials before closing the freezer again for several hours.
“We have to really choreograph this down to specific times when we’re actually going to touch the freezer and go in and out,” Isaacs said.
It’s unclear exactly how many front-line healthcare workers have been vaccinated so far. But Atrium spokeswoman Claire Simmons said about 70 employees spearheading the hospital system’s vaccine clinics are being prioritized.
One COVID-19 vaccinator, Caitlin Shannon, got her first dose on Monday. She said it was less painful than getting a flu shot, with some muscle soreness around the injection site lasting about 24 hours.
“My experience was relatively good,” Shannon told reporters during a news conference. “I do trust the system, that it’s been vetted. I think it’s most important to control this virus so we can get on with our lives and go back to being around each other.”
No one at Atrium has experienced severe allergic reactions or other significant side effects, said infectious disease physician Dr. Lewis McCurdy. The most common vaccine side effects include fatigue and muscle aches.
As a precaution, McCurdy said patients must stay at the vaccine clinic for about 30 minutes following the shot, in case emergency care is needed. Vaccinations are also staggered across medical units to avoid widespread disruptions.
Dr. Katie Passaretti, the medical director of infection prevention at Atrium, was the first person in North Carolina to get vaccinated. In a video, Passaretti said she felt “perfectly fine” and had no serious side effects.
On Thursday morning, Atrium Health emergency medicine physician David Callaway said he was “feeling great” and “proud to be one of the first to get the vaccine.”
“This is the first step in a long battle to recover our country,” Callaway said in an Instagram post, featuring a video of him receiving the first dose. “Trust the science. Trust the process. Trust your community.”
County health department
Mecklenburg County is one of just three health departments across North Carolina expecting to receive the Pfizer vaccine next week. Officials have not disclosed how many doses may arrive, though county spokeswoman Rebecca Carter said the quantity can be used within a 10-day span.
“There is no intent to have vaccine sitting in freezers for a long period of time,” Carter said in a statement to the Observer Wednesday. “Mecklenburg County Public Health has ordered a freezer that will accommodate the Pfizer vaccine and should be in receipt by the end of the year ... We do not anticipate a problem with storage of the vaccine or ability to maintain the vaccine safely until it is administered.”
Mecklenburg’s tiered vaccination plan starts with first responders and public health workers assigned to vaccination clinics, Public Health Director Gibbie Harris told county commissioners Tuesday.
The county is also responsible for inoculations in several long-term care facilities that missed a deadline to participate in the federal government’s vaccine program, Harris said. But it’s unclear how that misstep may redirect limited resources among people most at risk for contracting COVID-19.
This story was originally published December 17, 2020 at 4:27 PM.
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