GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. — For many months during the pandemic, health leaders have worked closely with local emergency management - figuring out the logistics of testing, contact tracing, and even enforcing executive orders. Now, they're working on a plan to get everyone vaccinated.
The first vaccine doses to arrive in the Triad are already at work immunizing the most at-risk frontline workers at Wake Forest Baptist Health - signaling the beginning of what's to come for the rest of our area.
"Obviously, this is logistically complex and it's why this team has spent months and months getting ready for vaccine distribution," said Governor Roy Cooper at a Tuesday press conference.
On a county level, Don Campbell, Director of Guilford County Emergency Management, said part of the mass vaccination process is already years in the making.
"We had an opportunity to test it back with H1N1, so we're actually using many of the plans that we did back during the H1N1 flu process to guide where we are in this planning process," he said.
As we've seen, the plan starts with vaccinating hospital staff. The county health department says Walgreens and CVS will take care of most long-term care facilities in. The county will fill in the gaps by vaccinating paramedics, EMTs, and county nurses - and everyone else who qualifies in Phase 1a. Campbell says the state will make the calls on when to move onto Phase 1b, Phase 2, and so forth.
He explained that administering two doses - the second 21 or 28 days after the first depending on whether it's a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine - complicates the vaccination process. But, they'll keep working to perfect it.
"The good news is we sort of get to stair-step our way into the process," Campbell said, "In phase 1A, it’s a small group of individuals and it’s also a smaller amount of vaccines so we have the opportunity to build our systems a little bit smaller, and then continue to practice those, and slowly get them larger and larger until we have enough vaccine in Phase 2, 3 and 4 to do large community events."
Campbells said most people can expect large-scale community vaccination events in the spring.
"Our planning cycle shows us really trying to focus on some of the large mass vaccination processes for the general public, really starting in March, April and May. And really, that will all be dependent on when we get those larger numbers of vaccine, and we are eagerly awaiting that information just like everybody else."
The county expects the first doses to arrive at the health department within the next few weeks, but they haven't received a formal notification on when exactly the shipments will arrive.
