UK begins vaccinations, US gears up for approval & distribution, and more
December 8, 2020
Today's Recap:
The first person in the UK received the newly approved Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, a 90 year old woman. They’re prioritizing healthcare workers and those over 80 years of age.
The US isn’t far behind. The FDA’s analysis found the same vaccine safe and effective. Serious side effects are rare, though mild ones like fatigue, pain at injection site, and headache are common. They’ll meet on Thursday to discuss emergency approval.
But the US may not have enough supply. The Trump administration turned down the opportunity to buy more than the 100 million doses they negotiated this past year, allowing the EU and other countries to sign deals with Pfizer. Additional doses likely won’t be available until summer.
The FDA also approved the first home-collected combination flu & COVID test. This would allow people to swab themselves at home and ship the sample to a lab.
States are in the process of determining how to prioritize vaccination within each group, like which essential workers will be prioritized. Some are considering lotteries, while unions and labor groups are lobbying for their members to be among the first.
The Trump administration and CDC are calling for data on vaccination recipients, raising questions on data privacy.State officials fear that the data, which includes address, birthdate, and ethnicity, may discourage undocumented people from getting vaccinated.
Will employees who have had positive COVID tests need to get vaccinated?
Yes. We don’t yet know how long immunity from COVID lasts and we also expect that the vaccine will afford better protection as COVID mutates. There is also increasing evidence that severity of illness translates to higher levels of antibodies. So those who were only mildly ill or were asymptomatic will have less protection from future illness than those who were sickest and recovered. Vaccine prioritization will ultimately be up to each state and some states will likely give lower priority to those who had some level of immunity.
We have some employees who are also healthcare workers who we expect may be vaccinated soon. Should we require any kind of documentation from them?
Good question. The short answer is stay tuned and we’ll share more info as soon as we get a definitive answer. There’s more we don’t know than we do about this right now. In many cases, we don’t know if there is any immunity after Dose 1 or if immunity only occurs at some point after Dose 2. Today we learned that Pfizer vaccine does provide some level of immunity after just the first dose. Early info is that sustained immunity occurs six weeks after Dose 1 if Dose 2 was done on time three to four weeks later. Anyone receiving a vaccination will receive a COVID vaccination record card. These likely need to be treated like medical records (and stored securely separate from the employee file).
What are you seeing among the employees who were contacted and told they could return to work in less than 14 days after exposure based on the updated CDC guidance?
Many of them are sick. When we reached out via text or email, a large number (depending on closeness of exposure and geography) replied that they had developed symptoms or tested positive. But in general, employees welcomed the earlier return.
If an employee is caring for someone who is sick and unable to isolate, is the exclusion still 24 days?
In most instances, it is now 20 days since it’s 10 days for the sick person’s infectious period plus 10 days of quarantine after that. States are still working on specific guidance and this may change. It’s important that everyone still understands the incubation period remains 2 to 14 days. However, the period for exclusion can generally be shortened to 20 days, even when caring for someone with COVID in the home.
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