YNHH photo
First doses administered Tuesday afternoon to five YNHH employees.
Thomas Breen photo
Man of the hour: Omari Bright drops off the goods Tuesday morning.
A hopeful new chapter in the Covid-19 pandemic began Tuesday afternoon as a dose of the vaccine that Onyema Ogbuagu worked on went into his arm.
Ogbuagu — an infectious disease doctor who served as Yale New Haven Health’s principal investigator in the development of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine — was one of five hospital employees to receive simultaneously the city’s first five shots of the vaccine at a public event to launch a local drive to inoculate New Haveners against the coronavirus.
At 1:19 p.m., officials counted down from three. Then, as a Zoom camera zoomed in, Ogbuagu, emergency nurse Mackenzie Kelly, intensive-care nurse Katherine-Kay Husler, YNHH critical-care team leader Jonathan Siner, and Covid-unit environmental services worker Terry Naser got their shots.
“It feels like a flu shot,” Ogbuagu (pictured) said afterwards.
Like subsequent recipients of the Pfizer vaccine, the five are to return in 21 days for a second and final dose.
YNHH intends to fast-track vaccinations of 400 emergency department, intensive care unit, and Covid-unit employees in the first wave in coming days. It aims within six weeks to vaccinate all of its 29,000 systemwide workers who agree to participate.
Participation is voluntary, as it is for the general population. Tuesday’s event also served as the launch of a “Crush Covid” campaign to convince people to take part.
“As a researcher who worked on the vaccine,” as a doctor “who has been on front lines caring for patients,” as as “dad of three kids,” and as “a person of color,” Ogbuagu said, he hopes “today is the beginning.” He called on all his fellow Yale New Haven workers, and then the New Haven population at large, to follow suit.
Ogbuagu’s plea echoed throughout Tuesday’s livestreamed event.
“This vaccine is safe. It is effective. And it is the way out of this pandemic,” remarked YNHH Chief Clinical Officer Thomas Balcezak.
Yale New Haven Hospital President Keith Churchwell (pictured) noted that some polls have shown as many as 40 percent of Americans hesitant to get vaccinated. That hesitation is particularly evident among people of color, an historically based distrust that Churchwell, as the hospital’s first Black leader, has vowed to address.
He and his colleagues Tuesday stressed that studies have shown the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to be safe and 95 percent effective.
“There is nothing more important today than to get vaccinated. It will keep you safe from one of the most ravenous diseases we have seen in our lifetimes. Stay away from the rumors and the stories that run rampant on the internet and get vaccinated,” Churchwell urged.
Yale New Haven Hospital is currently caring for 228 patients. Its seven-hospital network has 430. It has discharged more than 6,000 Covid patients this year, the most in the state.
“Our staff is tired. They haven’t gotten any breaks in this time. They’ve shown up everyday and done their best for their patients and their families,” said YNHH CEO Marna Borgstrom.
“They are the real heroes in this story and the people who should be protected as heroes.”
“It’s very quiet up on the Covid unit. All the doors are closed. Nurses are working very hard. Everybody has their PPE on,” Siner (pictured), a pulmonologist, said after receiving his shot. “These patients are very ill. There’s a lot of attention to detail and staying with it day after day on these smaller things.”
Siner said he was thinking Tuesday about “one particular patient” among the many he has seen: a man who “turned out to be the husband of a patient of mine who had died 15 years ago.” Siner remembered the husband when he entered the hospital in October, stricken with the coronavirus. The patient was quite sick; Siner had an end-of-life discussion with the son. The patient spent three weeks on a ventilator — then emerged well enough to leave the ICU.
It was one “step forward.”
1,950 Vaccines Delivered
Thomas Breen photo
Man of the hour: Omari Bright drops off the goods Tuesday morning.
YNHH pharmacy admins Dan Kilcoyne, Nilesh Amin, Sarah Kelly and Stacy Vaeth with the box of vaccines.
New Haven’s first 1,950 doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine arrived Tuesday morning — to the sounds of clicking cameras, applause for the FedEx delivery driver, and a top hospital pharmacist’s smiling declaration of, “We’re ready to crush Covid.”
That scene took place just after 8 a.m. in Yale New Haven Hospital’s shipping and receiving dock at 55 Park St.
In the cavernous, subterranean truck parking and delivery area off of South Frontage Road, FedEx deliveryman and Hamden resident Omari Bright dropped off a box containing three “pizza trays” with 1,950 doses of the Pfizer vaccine held in dry ice.
“It’s a surreal feeling,” Bright said with a small laugh, only his eyes visible between his neck warmer and beanie hat.
YNHH Executive Director of Pharmacy Stacy Vaeth and Assistant Director of Pharmacy Sarah Kelly signed for the package as Bright and YNHH pharmacy supervisor Nilesh Amin lifted the box onto a rolling tray.
“We’re so proud,” said Vaeth (pictured at right). “We’re ready to crush Covid. We’re ready to move forward. It’s a bright day for us.”
“We will take good care of it,” added Kelly.
The box held the first doses to arrive in the city after the federal government granted on Friday an emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The first vaccines in Connecticut arrived on Monday at Hartford Hospital, where frontline workers received their first shots.
Kaeth said that “a few individuals” at YNHH will get the vaccine on Tuesday. “A majority of our employees will get it tomorrow morning.”
In a press release sent out later Tuesday morning, YNHH identified the five first employees slated to receive the vaccine as YNHH infectious disease doctor Onyema Ogbuagu, who was the principal investigator for the local portion of the Pfizer Covid-19 trial; YNHH Medical Director of ICU Jonathan Siner, Emergency Department RN Mackenzie Kelly, Medical ICU RN Katherine-Kay Husler, and Environmental Services staffer Terry Naser.
In addition to the 1,950 doses arriving for Yale New Haven Hospital, Kaeth said, Derby’s Griffin Hospital — which is affiliated with the Yale School of Medicine — will receive 975 doses Tuesday.
After the delivery, Kelly said that the pharmacy directors and supervisors would take the box inside, “break it down,” everyone would put on “appropriate protective equipment, because there’s dry ice in there. Then we’ll count it, add it to our inventory,” and get it ready at room temperature for the first vaccine shots to be administered later this afternoon.
Vials of the Pfizer vaccine must be stored at ‑94°C. They can be refrigerated at 2 – 8°C for up to five days. Vaccine treatment includes two doses separated by a three week interval.
“I’m ecstatic that we have the vaccine now to provide to patients and our employees,” Amin said Tuesday.
YNHH Pharmacy Operations Manager Dan Kilcoyne agreed. “Christmas has definitely come early.”
Watch the delivery of the vaccines below.