BRYAN, TX — The Brazos County Health District, local hospital representatives, and city officials met Thursday to discuss the coronavirus vaccine coming to Brazos County.
“There are at least 24 other providers in the county who have applied and are in approval status for the vaccine as well, so we are expecting the vaccine to be available,” says Dr. Seth Sullivan, Brazos County Alternate Health Authority.
Baylor Scott & White Medical Center College Station is one of the 109 hospitals in the state of Texas that will be receiving the allocation of the coronavirus vaccines once approved by the F.D.A.
Once approved, the State has specified who will be able to receive the vaccine and when.
“The state is specifying the various tiers and right now we only know what Tier A1 looks like, which is the health care providers, employees directly interacting with or potentially interacting with COVID infected patients and the critical support department,” says Rachel Crowder, Director of Pharmacy with Baylor Scott & White Medical Center College Station.
Week one's shipment of 975 doses of the Pfizer vaccine will be enough to vaccinate all qualifying Tier A1 health care professionals who interact directly with COVID patients or potential patients and the support staff for COVID areas such as pharmacy and housekeeping that want to be vaccinated.
The second dose of vaccinations for Tier A1 will come from their second shipment and will be administered after 21 days is up.
“The C.D.C. has held back 50% of the doses that have been allocated for each disbursement so we will be able to vaccinate the full number of employees,” says Crowder.
CHI St. Joseph Health in Bryan was not on the Week 1 list of 109 hospitals to receive the vaccine, but says they will be receiving them in the coming weeks
“At St. Joesph’s we registered all of our hospitals both Bryan, College Station, Caldwell, Navasota, and Madisonville. The registrations have been accepted. We will be getting the vaccines,” says Dr. Kai Parsi, Chief Medical Officer at CHI St. Joseph Health.
Baylor Scott & White’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. William Rayburn, says while the hospitals in Brazos County are not requiring staff to get the vaccine, they highly recommend it.
“We’ve done a survey across our region and it appears that about two-thirds of our employees are interested in receiving it and about a third are kind of not sure yet,” says Dr. Rayburn.
Dr. Sullivan says, he is a part of the health care professionals that will be receiving the vaccine.
“I am in that two-third who is sure that I want the vaccine. And I am confident in its safety data and very excited about what it will do for our community and our nation and the whole world,” says Dr. Sullivan.
Baylor, Scott & White does not know what day they will be receiving the vaccines but once they arrive in College Station, they will begin vaccinations immediately.
