Health workers at risk of exposure to the virus and long-term-care staff and residents will be first in line for the vaccine, followed by police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical workers, residents in congregate settings such as prisons and homeless shelters, home-based caregivers, and other health workers who arent in COVID-facing jobs, according to the states distribution plan.
But a vaccination timeline released by the governors office suggests the state doesnt anticipate receiving nearly enough vaccines in the short term to inoculate all Massachusetts residents at heightened risk for COVID-19. The document identified more than 3 million people who should get early vaccines because of their health, age, jobs, or other risk factors, but, through April, enough vaccines for only about 1.1 million to get the two shots that are required.
Baker administration officials said they expect to get additional doses of vaccines after the first of the year. Those additional doses are not accounted for in the timeline released Wednesday.
People will receive one of two new vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, both of which are expected to be approved for emergency use by federal regulators by the end of next week. Both vaccines require two shots taken several weeks apart to be fully effective.
The first group of people in Massachusetts would get two vaccine doses between mid-December and February, in what state officials are calling Phase One of their distribution plan. That includes people working in health care who deal directly with COVID patients as well as residents and staffs at long-term-care facilities, which have accounted for most of the states COVID deaths.
Theyll be followed by people in Phase Two priority groups who are slated to be vaccinated between February and April: residents with two or more chronic illnesses; critical workers such as teachers; transit employees; and, food, sanitation, public works, and public health workers. After that will come adults who are 65 and over and individuals with a single serious illness making them at higher risk for COVID-19.
But its clear the state will need a larger supply of vaccines to inoculate all the people covered by Phase One and Phase Two.
Massachusetts expects to receive 300,000 vaccine doses in December and another 1.9 million doses by spring 2021 enough for 1.1 million people to get two shots each. But Bakers office estimated there are 600,000 people who should get the shots in Phase One and more than 2.5 million people in Phase Two.
Baker administration officials expect that the vaccines that are already committed to Massachusetts will be enough to give all people in the Phase One group their full two-shot vaccination, while starting the vaccination of people in Phase Two. They believe that the state will also secure more vaccines in 2021.
A majority of residents, those deemed not at a higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19, will get the vaccine in Phase Three, which Baker said could start as early as April. But state officials took pains to emphasize that the timetable could change with the unfolding of events, such as new vaccine approvals.
The first shipment of nearly 60,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine was ordered from the federal government last week and will be delivered next week to 21 hospitals in eight counties across the state and to an immunization lab run by the state Department of Public Health. Those facilities have the ultracold refrigeration capacity to store the vaccines, officials said.
Some vaccine doses will be administered to front-line health workers at those sites and the rest redistributed to a broader group of mostly smaller hospitals across 14 counties, according to the state plan.
A second shipment of about 40,000 doses would go to CVS and Walgreens to vaccinate staff and residents of long-term-care facilities, the state officials said. They didnt specify when the second shipment would arrive.
Baker said the vaccine would be provided free of charge to all individuals. Officials urged people to learn more about the distribution plan by clicking on mass.gov/covidvaccine.
The governor said that the vaccines represented the light at the end of the tunnel, but that it would be months before the population was safe. Were certainly not out of the woods yet. . . . We all need to continue to wear face coverings, avoid groups, and work to stop the spread, he said.
Baker also sought to allay public concern about the safety of the vaccine and whether it would work. The vaccine will not be distributed in Massachusetts until the FDA has approved it for emergency use and it is deemed to be safe, he said.
Baker said there would also be a racial justice component to the vaccine rollout plan, with Phase One recipients including many health workers of color and a share of vaccine doses set aside in later phases for communities hard hit by the virus.
We recognize that the pandemic has disproportionately affected communities of color and low-income people, Baker said. Our vaccine advisory board has been intently focused on ensuring that these voices have been heard during the planning process, and included representatives from this community.
The Rev. Liz Walker, senior pastor of Roxbury Presbyterian Church and a member of the governors vaccine advisory group, said making the vaccine available to communities of color is vitally important. But she acknowledged that many members of her community remain skeptical of the vaccine.
My prayer is that I have earned enough trust in my community to help people make good decisions, she said.
Marylou Sudders, the state secretary for health and human services, said the first priority of state officials would be hospitals. The distribution plan focuses on hospital capacity to store and administer the Pfizer vaccine for the health care workers in COVID-facing work, she said.
Dr. Paul Biddinger, chief of the division of emergency preparedness at Massachusetts General Hospital, who chaired the state vaccine advisory group, said the landscape could look very different in nine months.
So with all the caveats that we are dependent on all of the vaccines in the research pipeline receiving an emergency use authorization, the production being uninterrupted we believe that in six to nine months, we should have reached a good chunk of the country, Biddinger said.
Biddinger downplayed the severity of side effects from the vaccine, based on data from clinical studies.
We know that people [who get vaccinated] may have fatigue, may have muscle aches, may have headaches. A small number may have fevers, he said. And those are relatively mild and relatively more common in the second dose than in the first. Only a small number of people we expect, based on what weve heard so far, will actually feel ill enough to need to stay home.
The side effects, he said, represent the bodys immune response. He said that while no one wants muscle aches for a day, theyre very transient. In some of the studies, theyve been over in less than 24 hours.
Biddinger was crystal clear about the ultimate aim of state officials and those in the medical community.
The goal is really to vaccinate every eligible person, he said.
Robert Weisman can be reached at robert.weisman@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeRobW. Martin Finucane can be reached at martin.finucane@globe.com. Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.
TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of December 9, 2020, therehave been 1,250,368 total confirmatorylaboratory results received for COVID-19, with 58,462totalcases and 901 deaths.
DHHR has confirmed the deaths of an 83-year old male from WayneCounty, an 87-year old female from Berkeley County, a 76-year old male fromBerkeley County, a 70-year old male from Berkeley County, an 81-year old malefrom Wyoming County, a 79-year old female from Mineral County, a 54-year oldmale from Mineral County, a 64-year old male from Mineral County, an 83-yearold female from Mineral County, a 94-year old female from Mineral County, a 64-yearold female from Mineral County, a 76-year old male from Kanawha County, a 59-yearold female from Ohio County, an 89-year old male from Ohio County, an 85-yearold male from Ohio County, a 90-year old male from Kanawha County, a 74-yearold female from Marshall County, a 71-year old female from Berkeley County, a 49-yearold male from Mercer County, an 87-year old female from Gilmer County, an 89-yearold female from Putnam County, an 80-year old male from Putnam County, a 72-yearold male from Wood County, a 59-year old male from Wood County, an 88-year oldmale from Hancock County, a 73-year old male from Hardy County, a 90-year oldfemale from Mercer County, a 65-year old male from Mercer County, an 88-yearold male from Mercer County, a 74-year old female from Ritchie County, and a 78-yearold male from Wood County.
Aswe extend our deepest sympathies to the loved ones, we also encourage all WestVirginians to recognize the continued need to take every possible step to slowthe spread of this disease, said Bill J. Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary.
CASESPER COUNTY: Barbour (540), Berkeley (4,122),Boone (753), Braxton (154), Brooke (891), Cabell (3,581), Calhoun (92), Clay(170), Doddridge (152), Fayette (1,284), Gilmer (228), Grant (520), Greenbrier(721), Hampshire (516), Hancock (1,085), Hardy (441), Harrison (1,794), Jackson(834), Jefferson (1,677), Kanawha (6,599), Lewis (298), Lincoln (507), Logan(1,169), Marion (1,127), Marshall (1,570), Mason (705), McDowell (700), Mercer(1,617), Mineral (1,733), Mingo (1,075), Monongalia (3,796), Monroe (438),Morgan (387), Nicholas (455), Ohio (1,873), Pendleton (147), Pleasants (139),Pocahontas (281), Preston (903), Putnam (2,353), Raleigh (1,894), Randolph(837), Ritchie (219), Roane (223), Summers (307), Taylor (447), Tucker (207),Tyler (194), Upshur (587), Wayne (1,238), Webster (94), Wetzel (489), Wirt(144), Wood (3,248), Wyoming (907).
Please note that delaysmay be experienced with the reporting of information from the local healthdepartment to DHHR. As case surveillance continues at the local healthdepartment level, it may reveal that those tested in a certain county may notbe a resident of that county, or even the state as an individual in questionmay have crossed the state border to be tested.
Please visit the dashboard located at www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more information.
Upcoming free COVID-19 testing daily events:
December9, 2020
BarbourCounty
1:00 PM 5:00 PM, Junior Volunteer Fire Department, 331 Row Avenue,Junior, WV
BerkeleyCounty
11:00 AM 3:00 PM, Hedgesville High School, 109 Ridge Road N., Hedgesville,WV
4:30 PM 8:00 PM, Dorothy McCormack Building, 2000 FoundationWay, Martinsburg, WV
BooneCounty
BrookeCounty
CabellCounty
GrantCounty
10:00 AM 2:00 PM, Union Education Complex (School at Mt. Storm),52 Tiger Drive, Mt. Storm, WV
HampshireCounty
HardyCounty
8:00 AM 12:00 PM, Moorefield Armory, 167 Freedom Way,Moorefield, WV
4:00 PM 8:00 PM, Wardensville War Memorial Building, 190 E. MainStreet, Wardensville, WV
HarrisonCounty
9:00 AM 12:00 PM,Harrison-Clarksburg Health Department, 330 West Main Street, Clarksburg, WV (by appointment; 304-623-9308 and pre-registration:https://wv.getmycovidresult.com/)
JeffersonCounty
LoganCounty
MarshallCounty
MasonCounty
MineralCounty
MingoCounty
11:00 AM 4:00 PM, Delbarton Volunteer Fire Department, 68 FarleyAvenue, Delbarton, WV
NicholasCounty
1:00 PM 5:00 PM, Nazarene Camp, 6461 Webster Road, Summersville,WV
OhioCounty
11:00 AM 4:00 PM, Valley Grove Volunteer Fire Department, 355Fire House Lane, Valley Grove, WV (pre-registration: https://wv.getmycovidresult.com/)
11:00 AM 4:00 PM, Warwood Fire Station #9, 1301 Richland Avenue,Wheeling, WV (pre-registration: https://wv.getmycovidresult.com/)
11:00 AM 4:00 PM, Wheeling Island Fire Station #5, 11 NorthWabash Street, Wheeling, WV (pre-registration: https://wv.getmycovidresult.com/)
TaylorCounty
WayneCounty
10:00 AM 2:00 PM, Wayne County Health Department, 217 KenovaAvenue, Wayne, WV
WirtCounty
10:00 AM 1:00 PM, Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department, Wirt CountyOffice, 90 Senior Circle, Elizabeth, WV (pre-registration www.ipsumcovidresults.com)
WyomingCounty
11:00 AM 3:00 PM, Old Magic Mart, Highway 971, Oceana, WV
Additional testing will be held on Thursday, December 10 inBarbour, Berkeley, Boone, Cabell, Grant, Hampshire, Jackson, Jefferson, Kanawha,Logan, Marshall, Mason, Mingo, Nicholas, Ohio, Pocahontas, Taylor, Wayne, Wood,and Wyoming counties.
There are many ways to obtain free testing in West Virginia. Pleasevisit https://dhhr.wv.gov/COVID-19/pages/testing.aspx for more testing options.
Wed like to hit as many of those people as we can, because those folks are on the front line, Mihalakos said during a press conference Wednesday. With the crushing conditions were experiencing on the medical side right now with hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living, the vaccine could not possibly come at a better time. We really want to protect the protectors.
For the second phase, the state will focus on K-12 teachers, school staff, childcare workers, critical workers in high-risk jobs (such as employees of grocery stores), homeless shelters, people who are incarcerated and correctional staff, older adults, and those with moderate illnesses.
Children and young adults will fall into the third phase, although vaccines for those under 18 are still in development. The fourth phase will cover all other Rhode Island residents.
The federal Food and Drug Administration is expected to grant emergency use authorization for Pfizers vaccine on Thursday and review Modernas vaccine on Dec. 17. Pending approval, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet within 24 hours to determine the best practices for its usage.
Once the CDCs committee signs off, Rhode Island will convene an emergency meeting of its own task force within 24 hours and determine if the vaccine is safe to move forward, said Dr. Philip Chan, an infectious disease physician and consultant medical director of the state department of Healths Division of Preparedness, Response, Infectious Disease and Emergency Medical Services.
This is a multilevel process to really vet this vaccine, Chan said.
Rhode Island currently has the highest rate of COVID-19 infections in the nation, with an average daily case rate of 122.9 per 100,000 people, according to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Neighboring Massachusetts has a positive rate of 74.2 per 100,000, and Connecticut has a rate of 65.6 per 100,000.) Rhode Island added another 1,232 new positive cases Wednesday, bringing the total to 68,299, with a daily 7.6 percent positive rate. Another 14 people died from COVID-19 related illnesses, and 461 people were hospitalized Wednesday.
Rhode Island is expecting an initial 10,000 doses from Pfizer, and 19,000 from Moderna, then 8,000 or so additional doses per week over time, said Mihalakos. The amount Rhode Island receives could vary from week to week. Both vaccines require two doses, administered three weeks apart, to be effective, and those receiving the vaccine should expect side effects including fatigue, headaches, or muscle aches.
While the states distribution timeline is based on when the vaccines are approved and shipped, Mihalakos said that hospitals will vaccinate their own staff in the first week the doses are available. The vaccine will be shipped to CVS and Walgreens, which will facilitate vaccination of residents and staff of long-term care and assisted living facilities starting shortly after Christmas, she said. First responders, home health care workers and others covered in phase 1 will be vaccinated at clinics.
Rhode Island health officials are still working out how the vaccine will be administered to people in phases 2, 3 and 4.
There are a lot of unknowns and there is going to be some known and unknown challenges, said Chan. But, we really do feel confident will get this out in a timely manner.
Amanda Milkovits can be reached at amanda.milkovits@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmandaMilkovits.
MADISON (WKOW) Gov. Tony Evers today announced that the U.S. Department of Defense will send about 45 U.S. Army medical personnel to assist the states efforts to combat COVID-19 in Wisconsin.
The incoming medical personnel will support Marshfield Medical Center facilities in Marshfield, Eau Claire, Beaver Dam and Rice Lake.
Wisconsins health care system is strained, and our frontline health care workers are doing amazing work under extraordinary circumstances, said Evers in a news release. Many of them working back-to-back shifts in head-to-toe PPE, putting their health and safety on the line to take care of our vulnerable COVID-19 patients. This additional support is crucial and I thank the Department of Defense for providing these resources to the state.
The Marshfield Clinic system has been utilizing volunteers from the Wisconsin Emergency Assistance Volunteer Registry (WEAVR), but the need for more staff to meet patient demand remains a challenge.
We are deeply grateful for the support of the Department of Defense as we continue to deal with the spread of COVID-19 in Wisconsin, said Dr. Susan Turney, Marshfield Clinic Health System CEO. Because of the prolonged and intense nature of this crisis, many hospitals are near full capacity and medical staff is exhausted. Throughout the pandemic, weve seen the importance of partnerships in meeting this momentous challenge. We look forward to partnering with military medical personnel to provide the care our patients need.
The operation will be overseen by the U.S. Army North (ARNORTH), the Joint Force Land Component Command of U.S. Northern Command in support and coordination with federal and state efforts.
Researchers in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering created a unique data hub to track the pandemics impact on the electricity sector.
Getty Images
Researchers in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University sought to answer how energy consumption has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic through the creation of a cross-domain, open-access data hub.
Created by Professor Le Xie and collaborators, the Coronavirus Disease Electricity Market Data Aggregation+ (COVID-EMDA+) hub combines data across disciplines that showcases how human and environmental habits have impacted electricity usage.
COVID-EMDA+ incorporates seemingly extraneous information that turns out to be quite important to understand the impact of work-from-home policies and social distancing guideliens on the electricity sector.The data hub contains five major components: electricity market data, public health data, weather data, mobile device data and nighttime light satellite data.
Weather definitely affects electricity usage, Xie said. For instance, Texas had quite a hot summer. So, although everyone was quarantining inside, the month of August saw a surge in energy consumption from air conditioners.
The GPS location of mobile devices, a dataset that has never before been used in the analysis of the electricity sector, helps illustrate patterns in mobility, such as how many people are social distancing versus how many people are still visiting shopping centers.
City light at night in Manhattan was dimmed by about 40% between February and April.
Courtesy of Le Xie
Human mobility became an even greater factor in understanding electricity consumption once NASA published nighttime satellite images of large cities. When looking at images of Houston and New York City lit up at night from before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the stark contrast is clearly visible. In Manhattan alone, the city light at night was dimmed by about 40% between February and April. This meant that as quarantine progressed, fewer people were venturing outside in the evenings. Less human mobility meant less electricity needed to keep the busy cities lit.
The research uncovered a key finding: mobility is a strong indicator of electricity consumption changes.
In New York, the strongest indicator of electricity consumption is the visits to the retail sector the shopping malls and grocery stores, Xie said. We didnt realize how much that impacts electricity consumption. When visits to the retail sector decrease, electricity consumption plummets.
Moving forward, Xie hopes to incorporate data regarding socioeconomic status to shed more light on how the pandemic has impacted economically disadvantaged communities.
Someone who works minimum wage on an hourly basis will be affected much differently than someone who does not have to worry about their next paycheck, Xie said. The hub can serve as a unique lens to examine questions related to socioeconomic disparities, and hopefully uncover areas of energy poverty, where families may have trouble accessing reliable and affordable energy.
The data hub is updated daily after careful quality control to provide the most up-to-date information to the public. Xie and his team hope the hub can serve as an open-access tool for system operators, as well as for state and federal policy makers. Not only will it help policymakers make more informed decisions when it comes to allocating resources, but it will also help society become more aware of how much energy we consume and how we consume it.
It helps everyone to be more energy conscious and cognizant, especially during this once-in-a-lifetime societal crisis, Xie said.
HCESD 48, which covers portions of Katy, announced that paramedic Gordon Baker lost his two-month battle with coronavirus on Monday.
KATY, Texas COVID-19 calls in Harris County outside of Houston are rising at a higher rate than during the summer.
Paramedics in multiple emergency services districts, or ESDs, report increased call volumes for known or suspected COVID-19 patients. The true numbers are likely higher, after a patient is brought to the hospital and tested.
It is busy. We are seeing some more COVID cases and were seeing some sicker COVID patients," said Eric Bank, assistant EMS Chief for Harris County ESD 48, which covers portions of Katy. Its a challenge. Were trying to keep as many trucks up and staffed as we can.
In ESD 48, the department has already responded to at least 12 COVID-19 calls (an average day of all medical calls is in the mid-20s). In November, they responded to at least 33, and at least 38 in October. Paramedics are on pace to exceed November's total, and possibly October's.
The stress level that goes with this can be pretty high," said Assistant Chief Bank.
On Monday, the department lost paramedic Gordon Baker, who battled COVID-19 for two months and spent more than 30 years as a first responder throughout Katy, Houston and Harris County.
This is a giant loss for us because he was just that kindred spirit that would bring people together," Bank said. His role was not just to provide that emergency care, but provide them some comfort in a kind and gentle manner.
Bank said Baker taught that same message to his fellow paramedics: they were not just responding to a call, or going to the hospital, but attending to a person.
His coworkers are grieving while working, and finding ways to carry on Baker's legacy.
We cant just turn off the lights. This isnt a store. We still have to respond to calls," Bank said. Our job now is to honor Gordon and take care of his family.
CLEVELAND (WJW)Testing of wastewater at local treatment plants could provide a grim picture of what lies ahead in the coming days with respect to COVID-19.
The Ohio Department of Health tests water samples taken from plants across the state for the presence of genetic material that indicates the presence of the virus in the community,
This kind of testing allows us to test the entire community with one sample, one analysis versus testing everyone individually, said Scott Broski, the superintendent of environmental services at the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.
On Tuesday, the Ohio Department of Health sent a notice to the Cuyahoga County Board of Health warning that the million gene copy per day values taken from the Easterly and Westerly water treatment plants in the Cleveland area are the highest recorded to date for those two plants.
Though not an exact science, the results typically correspond with and may foreshadow the experience with COVID-19 in the surrounding community. That could indicate that health care providers can start to see an expected post-Thanksgiving spike in COVID-19 cases in the coming days.
Everyone that contracts COVID-19 starts shedding the virus. Some of us are asymptomatic, some of us have very mild symptoms and may not even recognize it as COVID-19, some become very ill and require hospitalization, but everyone that has the virus is then shedding the virus, Broski said.
So we get a picture of the whole community and we get it before they may actually become ill so we have the ability to use the data as an early warning system, or as a prediction as to what we may see develop case wise in the coming days, he added.
Graphs published by the Ohio Department of Health show an upward trajectory in the presence of the genetic material in wastewater samples, which can be impacted at different plants by different variables, including industrial use and runoff from rain or snow.
Though he does not interpret or publish the data, Broski does follow it very closely and said the historical values of the presence of COVID at each plant needs to be viewed in isolation with the trends at that particular plant.
The difficulty here with wastewater is that, you know, our plants they dont have community boundaries, they dont have county boundaries. We serve a wide area and people may travel to come to a hospital and get tested and whatnot so you know what is actually happening in our service area may not be an exact representation of that service area because of people travelling in and out coming to doctors offices and what not but it is an indicator, Broski said.
With the rising number of hospitalizations and positive tests making Cuyahoga County at risk of turning purple on the states COVID chart, the fact that the trend from the wastewater samples has been on the rise comes as no surprise to him.
It doesnt surprise me. I think that we have been seeing the surge in cases statewide and in the area for weeks now so to see the trends moving in the upward direction in both the viral gene copies per liter and million gene copies per day. It really is just kind of confirming what we have seen from the testing that has occurred from those presenting with the illness.
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Sixteen sites around the world are preparing to administer the militarys first doses of COVID-19 vaccine to health care workers and other essential personnel, as soon as the Food and Drug administration approves the two-dose Pfizer regimen for emergency use.
Using the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions plan for vaccination priorities, the Defense Department will vaccinate uniformed and civilian health care workers first, before working their way down through a plan that later includes critical national security units, troops preparing to deploy outside the country and so on.
We expect to have shots in arms of DoD personnel within 20 to 48 hours from the time the [FDA advisory panel] issues its final recommendation, Thomas McCaffery, the defense under secretary for health affairs, told reporters on Wednesday.
DoD expects to get 44,000 initial doses of the vaccine, which will initially go to 13 U.S.-based sites, and three overseas, where officials have determined there are both the conditions to store them properly as well as enough highest-priority personnel to make use of them.
Those could go out as soon as next week, McCaffery said, as the expectation is that FDA will meet and render its decision sometime this week.
Once the supply chain gets rolling, vaccines will be sent force-wide.
Nearly all of those initial doses will go to health care workers and other medical or counseling staff, including reservists and Guardsmen.
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A very, very, very limited number of them will go to senior department officials, Lt. Gen. Ronald Place, head of the Defense Health Agency, said.
Those may include acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Army Gen. Mark Milley and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Air Force Gen. John Hyten, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said, adding that they have been encouraged to get their vaccines administered publicly.
Senior leaders will be doing a good amount of public outreach for the vaccine, because unlike the many other mandatory injections for service members, this one is going to be voluntary for a while.
Our advice to everyone would be to take the vaccine, just based on risk, Place said, place said, adding that the initial feedback on the safety and efficacy of the vaccines is very good.
The possible side effects will sound familiar to anyone whos had a vaccine before, including a sore arm and potentially a fever.
DoD is also recommending that COVID-19 survivors also get the vaccine, McCaffery said, as research is inconclusive about how effective antibodies are and how long they last.
As of Wednesday, 86,007 troops, 22,553 DoD civilians, 13,202 dependents and 7,838 DoD contractors have tested positive for the virus and 13 service members have died from COVID complications.
Keeping the vaccine voluntary initially is consistent with the emergency use authorization. Once FDA has signed a full approval, Place said, the department will take a look at making it mandatory.
Once medical and clinical staff are vaccinated, high-level national security personnel like nuclear submarine sailors, Air Force bomber crews and special operations counter-terror units will follow, and deploying troops will follow them, much like the current COVID-19 testing protocol DoD implemented in April.
The next groups include other support personnel, like military police, firefighters and others who are not able to telework or minimize their contact with other people,
Once those groups are squared away, according to the plan, DoD will set about vaccinating high-risk dependents and other civilian personnel, based on risk factors like age and pre-existing conditions.
The final phase will include healthy personnel not considered on the front lines, but McCaffery couldnt say when he expects all volunteers will be vaccinated.
There are several factors that will affect that, including whether and when a second vaccine candidate, from Moderna, gets its emergency use authorization and how quickly those vaccines can roll out. Each vaccine also requires a booster, adding amount a month onto the timeline after everyone has received an initial dose.
Meanwhile, DoD will continue its testing and quarantine policies, with some updates forthcoming.
In light of the CDC reducing its quarantine recommendations from 14 days to 5 to 10, depending on whether an exposed person has taken a COVID-19 test, DoD is considering reducing its 14-day quarantines around travel or deployments, McCaffery said, though a policy hasnt been finalized.
Its holiday season, a time when family and friends want to gather, but COVID-19 cases continue to rise in the United States. What do these latest spikes mean and what are certain states doing to help slow the spread?
PBS NewsHours Amna Nawaz will speak with Dr. Camara Phyllis Jones, on the subject. Jones is a family physician, epidemiologist, and a former president of the American Public Health Association.
Watch the livestream in the player above at 12:30 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 10
As health systems prepare for the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines for frontline workers in Michigan possibly as early as Friday businesses across the state are weighing their options for making their employees get vaccinated.
When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration provides full approval later this year for the vaccine, it's expected employers will legally be allowed to mandate vaccination. But following through on a mandate is murky, culturally and politically, in a divided nation during a pandemic that's left fissures in how employees view the virus.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve emergency use authorization for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine as early as Thursday. Under the EUA, employers are required to provide an option to refusevaccination. Only frontline workers in hospitals, nursing homes and other care facilities are expected to be offered the vaccine through their employer until the FDA fully approves the vaccine in the coming months.
Michigan hospital executives are not expected to mandate the vaccine for employees, at least initially, to sidestep any issues under the EUA.
The University of Michigan Health System, Henry Ford Health System, Beaumont Health, Trinity Health Michigan and Ascension Health said they have no plans to mandate.
Officials from Beaumont and UM told Crain's they haven't decided yet what to do if health care workers who should receive the vaccine refuse to take it. They said it is possible those health care workers could be transferred to non-COVID-19 units or other duties, although that may prove difficult with already growing staff shortages.
Betty Chu, Henry Ford's chief quality officer, said the six-hospital health system sees no need to reassign any staffer who declines to receive the vaccine.
"While we will highly encourage our front line workers to be vaccinated, we will not require that they do so," Chu said in a statement to Crain's. "Vaccinated or not, all of our front-line healthcare workers must adhere to our mask wearing, (personal protective equipment) guidelines and all of our safety protocols, which are highly effective in protecting them and those with whom they are in contact in the healthcare setting."
Only one other vaccine has ever been approved in the U.S. on the EUA basis anthrax. Beginning in 1998, the U.S. Department of Defense made the anthrax vaccine mandatory for high-risk personnel but the program was suspended in 2004 after a federal judge determined the FDA did not follow protocol on authorizing the inhalant version of the vaccine. The Defense Department was discharging military personnel who refused the vaccine. In 2005, the FDA approved the vaccine on a EUA basis and the Defense Department resumed vaccinations but on a voluntary basis with the option of transferring high-risk personnel away from positions with high-risk potential for anthrax poisoning.
And while local governments have legally mandated vaccines in the past New York City officials mandated the measles vaccine in 2019 to anyone more than 6 months old who lived, worked or attended school within four Brooklyn ZIP Codes it's unlikely Michigan health officials will pull that lever.
"We're not looking at implementing that in the state of Michigan," Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, chief medical executive and chief deputy director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, told Crain's. "I will say, though, I do think this vaccine is the path out of this pandemic. And I think that every employer has a role to play when it comes to at least encouraging their workers to get the vaccine."
Employers will have more authority to mandate the vaccine once the FDA provides full approval for the inoculations, which is expected later this year.
Under U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines, COVID-19 qualified for the American with Disabilities Act standards of a "direct threat" that permits more extensive medical inquiries and controls in the workplace than under normal conditions. Because of this, it's expected the EEOC will back employers who choose to make the vaccine mandatory when it becomes widely available. Courts have previously upheld employer rights to mandate vaccines, as many hospitals did during the 2010 H1N1 flu outbreak.
The EEOC guidelines, set in March, allowed employers to put in place medical testing and other measures the ADA typically does not permit, such as taking employee temperatures and certain screening questions. But the guidance also prohibited mandates for vaccines, which weren't developed then. That prohibition is likely to change soon, said Elisa Lintemuth, partner and compliance attorney for Detroit-based Dykema Gossett PLLC.
"The EEOC knows this is going to be a big issue," Lintemuth said. "I'd expect guidance very quickly after the EUA approval."
However, just because an employer can mandate a vaccine, actually doing so may prove difficult. COVID-19 has become politicized since the outbreak began in March.
"I think mandates are going to vary dramatically form workplace to workplace," Lintemuth said. "Some of it might be based on political and ideological beliefs of upper management."
But some employers may be willing to step on ideology in favor of returning to a functioning workplace, said Sara Jodka, partner and compliance attorney for Detroit-based corporate law firm Dickinson Wright LLP.
"Manufacturers, for instance, are losing money," Jodka said. "They are paying people that are getting sick or taking care of family members. At the end of the day, this is for worker protection. Employers don't want to see employees sick. They are attempting to get back to some sort of normalcy. Masking or distancing doesn't appear to be working. This is what these employers are pinning hope on so their business can get back to normal."
But employers will have to contend with workers seeking exemptions for the vaccine. Under the ADA, workers are allowed to opt themselves out from receiving the vaccine for health or religious reasons, but it's a narrow spectrum.
Employers have the right to prod an employee about the specific religious belief or medical condition that prevents them from getting a vaccine, such as pregnancy or an autoimmune disease, Jodka said. Employers can fire an employee who refuses the mandate if they do not have sufficient evidence of an exempt status.
"We've been through this with flu vaccine mandates," Jodka said. "The EEOC is going to stand by employers. An anti-vaxxer, for instance, is going to have to show an underlying medical condition and being an anti-vaxxer is not one. They are going to have to come forward and show those diagnoses. All an employer has to do is prove there is there a justification and a business necessity to require a vaccination. With a pandemic killing almost 3,000 people a day, they could easily show a business need."
But it's more likely companies will at least try to work with employees who do not wish to receive the vaccine, Lintemuth said, such as forcing those employees to continue to work from home if they are able to do so or maintain the current requirements of social distancing and mask wearing.
"It's really going to depend on how much of the workforce ends up objecting," Lintemuth said. "Whether the employer is risk adverse or whether they are willing to respond to employee complaints is the ultimate decider. We have to remember, no one is sure what the threshold is for herd immunity. Once we know more, you'll see more decisions being made."
Senior Reporter Jay Greene and Senior Editor Chad Livengood contributed.
