“This vaccine is safe and we need to get to the 80% mark to get to community immunity.”
Dr. Tom Balcezak, Yale New Haven Health System chief clinical officerThey are also using sending nurses to people’s homes to vaccinate the homebound.
Beyond that, he said, “We have community healthcare workers pounding the pavement around Bridgeport, New Haven and New London going into locations to help people sign up. In first week of March we’ll start mobile vaccination sites! It’s a multi prong effort.”
About 70% of the system’s invited medical staff and employees – about 34,000 people – have been vaccinated.
“We’re leaving those invitations active. We’re still steering folks making appointments for their first vaccine. It’s a slower drip of numbers of individuals, but they’re still coming in. The minority population does trail our overall numbers.”
“Folks are wearing stickers to show they’ve been vaccinated. It’s a personal choice for individuals to make. We are not mandating it, but we think it’s in their best interest for them and their families and from the community perspective.”
Variants
Balcezak said most virologists anticipate the South African and UK (B117) variants to become dominant.
“All viruses are constantly changing and mutating,” he said, adding that they hoped to add more capacity to do sequencing.
“We have a way within our Covid testing lab to selectively sample individual specimens that appear to may have the signal for the variant,” he said, adding that they hope to add more capacity to do additional sequencing.
All that said, the system is not changing its focus.
“It should sharpen our focus on getting vaccinations out there more quickly and sharpen our focus on masking and social distancing,” Balcezak said, adding the new variants were no more serious, just more infectious and could possibly lead to a third wave if people become complacent.
“I don’t see anything in what I’ve read that the vaccines will not be efficacious (on the variants),” he added.
There are more than a dozen sites across the state where the health system offers vaccinations.
“Where we see more demand we’re sending more doses to those areas,” he said, adding that this week they were ramping up their site at University of Bridgeport.
Zero Flu Cases is Good News, Especially for Children
Balcezak said that as of last week the system had not seen any flu cases.
“Usually by this time of year we have hundreds of flu cases across the system….There will be fewer deaths in children who would have died of flu or RSV.”
Dr. Tom Balcezak, Yale New Haven Health System chief clinical officer
Double Masking
Balecezak said, “It’s not as simple as double masking. We need to make sure people wear the masks appropriately and make sure they are tight fitting. Most medical grade masks are 3 layers of non woven materials. Those are the best.”