Alabama hospitals receive first doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines
UAB received its first doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine this morning. (Steve Wood/UAB)
UAB Medical Center received nearly 11,000 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine this morning and has plans to start vaccinating front-line health care workers in the Birmingham metro area this week.
UAB receives first batch of COVID-19 vaccine from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
Dr. Sarah Nafziger, co-director of UAB’s Emergency Management Committee, said UAB will be working with area health care providers within a seven-county region and 40-mile radius to administer the 10,725 doses of the vaccine. That will include 7,507 hospital-based personnel, 1,609 clinic-based personnel and 1,609 emergency medical service workers.
Nafziger said UAB is scheduling vaccinations and will start administering them later this week with a plan to give up to 1,000 per day at two sites. A walk-in site will be at UAB Medical Center and a drive-thru site will be at the parking deck of UAB’s Highlands campus.
The Pfizer shot is a two-shot vaccination. A second dose is given three weeks after the first. But Nafziger said the first dose provides a level of protection and lessens the severity of COVID-19 should infection come before the second dose.
Other sites in Alabama received their first shipment of the vaccine today. Dr. Walter Doty IV and Dr. Ravi Nallamothu received the first doses this morning at Southeast Health in Dothan.
The Alabama Department of Public Health is following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines in distributing the vaccine.
The initial doses are being distributed to 15 Alabama hospitals to vaccinate specific groups of people in the first phase. These are front-line health workers, including clinical and nonclinical employees, in hospitals.
In addition to UAB and Southeast Health, hospitals receiving vaccine are:
- Athens-Limestone Hospital
- Baptist Medical Center South (Montgomery)
- Cullman Regional Medical Center
- DCH Regional Medical Center (Tuscaloosa)
- East Alabama Medical Center (Opelika)
- Huntsville Hospital
- Lake Martin Community Hospital (Dadeville)
- Mobile Infirmary
- Providence Hospital (Mobile)
- Springhill Memorial Hospital (Mobile)
- Thomas Hospital (Fairhope)
- USA Health University Hospital (Mobile)
- USA Children’s & Women’s Hospital (Mobile).
Only members of those specific groups can be vaccinated at this time. ADPH chose the hospitals based on their ability to handle ultracold storage of the vaccine. The vaccine was shipped directly to the hospital sites.
UAB’s Nafziger said that unfortunately, the vaccination will do nothing to stop the current surge of COVID-19 that has led to record-high hospitalizations in the state. She urged the public to continue to wear masks, wash hands and social distance. It could be spring before the general public has access to the vaccine, she said.
The vaccinations are crucial to those health care workers stretched to the limits caring for the sick.
“Having this vaccine has given us a ray of hope, Nafziger said. “It’s taken away a lot of the anxiety that a lot of us feel.”
UAB’s Dr. Sarah Nafziger explains plans to administer COVID-19 vaccine to health care workers in the Birmingham metro area from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
