ANN ARBOR, MI — Dr. Payal Patel, an infectious disease physician at Michigan Medicine, has been working on the frontlines of the fight against the coronavirus since March.
Patel has treated COVID-19 patients and others with life threatening illnesses throughout the year as hospitals in Michigan hover near capacity. As the latest spike in hospitalizations continues to strain health care workers, the recently approved Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was made available to a select group of health care workers at Michigan Medicine Monday at a critical time.
The health care system began its COVID-19 vaccinations Monday, Dec. 14 with a group of five frontline workers, including Patel, who met the criteria to be among those vaccinated during the first phase.
Patel, who received the vaccine Monday afternoon said she didn’t have any side effects, adding that the level of pain after the shot “wasn’t that bad.”
“Sometimes it takes a day or two, but, so far, I don’t (have side effects),” Patel said. “When I got it, it really just felt like a quick poke and that was all so far.”
Part of Patel’s responsibilities as an infectious disease physician is interacting with COVID-19 patients on the phone and in-person as well as all other patients at the hospital. While Michigan Medicine is not making the vaccine mandatory for its employees, Patel said she encourages those who meet the prioritization criteria to receive it.
“One way to think about it is -- the last seven months there have been hundreds of thousands of people getting the vaccine in the studies so that really has been a waiting period to see about side effects and we’re not really the first people to get it. I think of that as the trial period,” Patel said. “It’s been a long year already, and the longer that people wait to get vaccinated, the crappier 2021 will be and so for me, I really want things to get back to normal and that pushed me to want to get the vaccine early.”
Patel said she plans to encourage her friends and family to join her in receiving the vaccine as soon as possible.
“What I want to emphasize is in the hospital we are still seeing a lot of people that are sick,” Patel said. “The light at the end of the tunnel is still pretty far away so we still got to keep to the precautions that we’ve been keeping so that all of us will make it to the end of the tunnel.”
The first employee vaccinated, Johnnie Peoples, is a registered nurse with Survival Flight, Michigan Medicine’s critical care transport program, according to the health system. The others who received vaccinations Monday are a registered nurse in the emergency department, a physician in the surgical intensive care unit and a resident physician in internal medicine, health care system officials said.
“This is a great day!” said Marschall S. Runge, CEO of Michigan Medicine, dean of the University of Michigan Medical School and executive vice president of University of Michigan medical affairs. “Over the many debilitating months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we all have longed for the initiation of an effective vaccination program. We are absolutely delighted that we now begin vaccination for the faculty and staff of Michigan Medicine who have cared for so many during this pandemic.”
Monday’s initial shipment included 1,950 doses of the Pfizer Inc./BioNTech vaccine. Michigan Medicine, the academic medical center of the University of Michigan, expects to vaccinate about 40 employees beginning Tuesday and ramping up the volume as early as next week, depending on supply.
Runge cautioned that it will take time before a vaccine is readily available to anyone who wants it. Because the academic medical center includes approximately 28,000 employees and initial supply is limited, Michigan Medicine is coordinating a phased approach of priority groups to offer the vaccine based on state and federal guidelines, the release said.
“While distribution continues, it’s vital for all of us to continue to social distance and wear masks when going out in public,” Runge said. “This milestone marks the culmination of months of hard work, including the collaboration of dozens of U-M experts reviewing safety and efficacy data and coordinating a robust vaccine distribution program.”
Michigan Medicine is following the Food and Drug Administration’s Emergency Use Authorization from the federal government, and will be administering the two-shot vaccine as tested in the clinical trial, meaning those who received the shot Monday will be administered another dose to build up an immunity to the virus.
For more general vaccine information and frequently asked questions, click the following link to be taken to the Michigan Medicine Headlines page.
READ MORE FROM THE ANN ARBOR NEWS:
Trucks carrying Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine depart Michigan facility for distribution
How Michigan will prioritize who gets the first COVID-19 vaccines
Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine now 95-percent effective, company announces
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