COVID-19 vaccines: What healthcare providers need to know

As of early January 2021, the United States has begun Phase 1 of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

This video will help health care providers get up to date on key information regarding the vaccines.

National guidelines are recommending prioritizing giving the vaccine to the public according to a person's status as an essential worker and their risk of becoming ill from COVID-19.

Based on these criteria, they have identified different categories/segments.

The first category, called Phase 1a, is where residents of long-term care facilities and front-line healthcare workers, including first responders will be vaccinated, [22].

Next is Phase 1b, where essential workers and adults aged 75 and over will be vaccinated [22].

In Phase 1c, adults aged 65 and over, as well as patients at high-risk for severe COVID-19 infection caused by pre-existing health conditions will be vaccinated.

In Phase 2, everyone 16 years of age or older who hasn’t received a vaccine will be eligible to receive one.

These national recommendations continue to evolve and may change over time, however, it’s ultimately up to each state to decide how vaccines will be distributed.

Currently there are two vaccines approved by the FDA for use in the United States.

The first is BNT172b2.

It was created by BioNTech, Fosun Pharma, and Pfizer and is colloquially called the “Pfizer vaccine”.

It’s an mRNA vaccine that must be stored long-term in -112 to -76 fahrenheit, or -80 to -60 celsius.

MRNA vaccines differ from traditional vaccines as they cause our body to manufacture the spike protein of the virus we’re trying to protect against, instead of introducing remnants of the virus itself.

Once thawed and diluted, vials can be stored in a refrigerator for 6 hours.

Initially, these vials were reported to hold 5 doses per vial, however, it has been discovered each vial contains 6 usable doses and official documentation has been updated.

People receiving this vaccine should receive two intramuscular doses of 0.3mL of diluted vaccine, 3 weeks apart.

Phase 3 trials, done in over 44,000 people aged 16 to 91, showed that the Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective at preventing symptoms of COVID-19 seven days after the second dose has been delivered.

In the study, a total of 170 individuals contracted COVID-19, 8 people had received the vaccines, and the other 162 had received the placebo.

It’s worth noting COVID-19 infection rates in the vaccination group began to decrease when compared with the placebo group two weeks after the initial dose was administered.