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Capital area hospitals on standby as they await first shipments of Pfizer vaccines

3 years 3 months 2 weeks ago Saturday, December 12 2020 Dec 12, 2020 December 12, 2020 11:35 PM December 12, 2020 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE - Hospitals in the Capital City are on standby, eagerly awaiting the call that confirms their facility's shipment of Pfizer's COVID vaccines are on the way.

And thanks to the team efforts of Pfizer personnel, delivery drivers, and even airport staff, it's a call that hospital workers expect to receive any minute.

With the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announcing its Emergency Use Authorization of Pfizer's vaccine on Friday, medical facilities across Louisiana's capital region worked quickly to prepare for receipt of the vaccinations.

Delivery workers with UPS and FedEx, along with airline personnel, are likewise, working overtime to ensure that shipments arrive as quickly as possible. 

A total of 39,000 doses are being sent to Louisiana, with the first batch going to health care workers in hospitals. They'll be followed by staff members and patients in nursing homes, and after this, the vaccine will be available to the general population.

But once the vaccines are administered to the general public, it will still take time for their positive effects to be seen in the community.

"The vaccines are going to be enormously helpful, but it will take a couple of months before they really start having an effect," Dr. Ashish Jha of Brown University says. "And it's particularly important people be careful right now."

Health experts agree that even as vaccines are administered from the start of the new year and likely into the Spring, COVID-safe precautions such as wearing masks and practicing social distancing will still need to be applied during daily activities.

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