BOUNTIFUL — More hospitals in Utah started inoculating the most at-risk health care workers on Monday after receiving doses of the newly approved Moderna vaccine.
“It was honestly a really great moment for us. We’ve been waiting for this for a long time, and we’re just super excited to get it done,” said Liz Barnes, an ICU nurse at Lakeview Hospital.
Jacci Kennedy, director of critical care, called the day “bittersweet” after nearly a year caring for coronavirus patients.
“We’ve seen a lot happen over the last nine to 10 months, and so it’s a very sweet day to see that we’re making a lot of progress within our health care community and community in general,” Kennedy said.
She said the vaccine means that “we’re here. We are here to take care of people, we are here to take care of our community, and we can continue to do so healthy.”
Vaccinations will give health care workers more confidence in their own safety as they care for patients, Kennedy said.
The Bountiful hospital became one of the first to receive doses of the Moderna vaccine, which received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday.
“What I’ve seen as I’ve watched people come into the room and get vaccinated, there’s a sense of excitement and looking toward the future with brightness,” said Troy Wood, CEO of Lakeview Hospital.
“Hope is powerful, and as they were getting the vaccine, there was a lot of joy ... and looking at each other and feeling like we’re making a bit of history here, and feeling good about how fast we were able to get a vaccine.”
Wood said the hospital received 500 doses at 8 a.m., quickly thawed them and began distributing them within an hour. Those who work in the intensive care and surge units received the vaccines first, Wood said.
When 60% of the doses have been administered, the hospital can request more to vaccinate the rest of its 600 workers. Most of the staff should receive their first vaccine by the week after Christmas, he said.
Lakeview Hospital was one of several across the state waiting for Moderna’s vaccine, as the Pfizer vaccine approved the week before requires special, colder storage that not all hospitals have access to.
Last week, Intermountain Healthcare and University of Utah Health administered the state’s first doses of the Pfizer vaccine to about 5,000 health care workers collectively. As of Monday, 25,000 vaccine doses had been shipped to Utah, and at least 6,520 vaccinations had been administered in the state, according to health department data.
Meanwhile on Monday, Utah health officials reported 1,819 new COVID-19 cases and six more deaths due to the coronavirus.
Like many across the state, Lakeview Hospital has recently been hit hard by cases, leaving nurses and doctors to work additional and longer shifts, according to Wood.
“And it does take a toll on our staff. So this doesn’t fix that issue. I think we will see ... probably a continued, unfortunate increase maybe in the next month or two” after the holiday season, Wood said.
“We always hope for the best and plan for the worst.”
But ahead of the anticipated increase in their workload, he said the vaccines gave health care workers a needed boost “to endure the next three to six months.”
“Today’s about getting the confidence for the caregivers who are on those front lines who have done a really good job to this point not contracting the virus. In fact, we have 600 employees here at Lakeview and we have had zero transmission from patient to staff or staff to patient, so that’s wonderful. But there’s an added level of confidence when you have that vaccine,” Wood said.
Despite vaccines becoming available, however, he pleaded with Utahns to remember “the fight is still going.”
“This is a great step but we would encourage everyone to continue to wear masks and hand wash while the rest of the population gets inoculated,” he said.
It likely won’t be until spring through summer that vaccines become available to the general population, according to the state’s vaccination plan. The Pfizer vaccine requires two doses 21 days apart, and the Moderna vaccine requires two doses administered 28 days apart.
New cases
Monday’s 1,891 cases were confirmed out of 6,359 people tested, with a 30% positive rate, according to the Utah Department of Health. The rolling seven-day average for positive tests is 2,423 per day, and the average for percent of positive laboratory tests is 23.2%.
On Monday, 551 patients were hospitalized with the disease in Utah, six fewer than were hospitalized the previous day.
To date, 252,783 cases have been confirmed in Utah out of 1,648,918 people tested. About 10,100 people have required hospitalization for the coronavirus in the state since the start of the pandemic.
The deaths reported Monday bring the state’s toll to 1,161. They include three Salt Lake County residents who were hospitalized when they died — a woman older than 85, a man between 25 and 44, and a man between 65 and 84; two Washington County men, one of whom was between 65 and 84, and one who was between 45 and 64, who both died while hospitalized; and a Wasatch County man between 65 and 84 who was a long-term care resident.