Vaccine Press Conference - Jan. 13, 2021

Video Transcript

Julia Yoder, Brookings Health System: I've sent all of them the press release from the Department of Health regarding vaccinations and starting their opening up to vaccinate groups 1E on Monday, in particular, those that ages 80 years and older. And so, Jason, did you maybe want to start off with information regarding that as far as where the health system is at?

Jason Merkley, Brookings Health System: Sure. Thanks. Good afternoon, guys, and thanks for taking the time here. What I would maybe start off with by saying is that this is a very fluid process and fluid meaning in that, allocations that we are able to receive within this state are really dictating how we can deploy vaccine and vaccinations.

And so, as we move forward, we are just in the process. Actually tomorrow it is our hope that we will be completing the group 1C, and so we have vaccination clinics going on today and tomorrow to complete hopefully, or at least offer the vaccine to all those in that group, 1A, B, and C.

Those groups are much more defined and easier for us to target than when we get to 1D and you have the information on the individuals that are in 1D, but we start to get into a pretty good amount of population. Actually, it's roughly, according to the state estimates, it's roughly about 265,000 people across the state of South Dakota.

That obviously comes with many more challenges in trying to figure out, one, how to target all those individuals, and then also try to look a little bit more at the vulnerability of people as it relates to COVID and who might be more vulnerable than the others from a standpoint of just the infectious disease and how it's impacting people based upon age.

And so the decision, again, was just kind of relayed to us last night on a phone call with the department of health of breaking down 1D and thus the communication that came out today.

And so as we begin to break that down within our community, the fluidity really needs to happen in how do we handle that? How do we target those populations? How do we make some of those things happen? Again, understanding that we're just completing 1C.

And so, there is planning and meetings that have been scheduled. We have worked and talked with the local county pod. They have a meeting tomorrow to begin planning for a more of a potential for more of I'll call it a mass vaccination process.

The challenge with the pods is really the amount of allocations that we're receiving. And so at this point in time, which is unknown at this time from a future standpoint exactly what we'll be able to get in the state of South Dakota, but at this point in time, we're only getting roughly about 11,000 to 12,000 doses to work with. And that will hopefully uptick as more progress happens on that side of the fence but we're just not knowing that at this point in time.

To break that down even further, Brookings Health System and Brookings County is only receiving roughly about 200 to 300. That's been kind of our weekly allocation of vaccines.

As you can tell, when you look at that and apply that to the 265,000 people that are in group D and I'm sorry, I don't know exactly off the top of my head how many of those are in Brookings County, but it's a significant amount. It's thousands of people. It's a long period of time if our allocations don't change before we are able to make our way through group D.

So our intent is to start hopefully next week, and our allocation is still in that 200 to 300 range and we will begin to look at what again is the most vulnerable group in that. The state has mentioned 80 years of age and older. We also believe that persons with two or more underlying medical conditions are very important to target and try to hit and so we're in the planning stages of trying to figure out how to make those things happen.

Jill Fier, The Brookings Register: So is there anything you can tell people yet about how they would be able to go about getting a vaccine, who to call, where to schedule an appointment or anything like that, or would it be truly the pod style event?

Jason Merkley, Brookings Health System: So at this point in time, again, notification was really, the meetings were just held last night. So we are working on trying to stand up, I'll call it for lack of a better word, a contact us or even a call center from a county perspective. It's pending. It takes a time to stand those things up, but our hope is that we will have some level of communication process that will be going out to folks within our county that will identify them.

They will then identify themselves within that subgroup, and they will say, "Okay, yes, I'm over 80 years old, here's my opportunity to get my vaccination. I'm supposed to call this number, or I'm supposed to reach out to this place." And then we will then schedule those folks because there has to be some level of scheduling associated with this. Otherwise, we will have lines of people like you see in some other states and some other places and that's just not a very good use of one, people's time and probably two, our time to be able to make some of this stuff happen.

So there's lots of things that come along with the vaccine. It's not like your flu vaccine; we actually have to monitor these people for at least 15 minutes after they received their vaccine. Obviously, we're dealing with distancing and other guidelines associated with COVID that we're trying to deploy at the same point in time.

So we want it to be as structured as possible, and right now we're not alone in that everybody is trying to figure out what's that process to try to make that happen. And again, the limiting process for some of that is we just don't have enough vaccines to really do a big pod event. And hopefully, that might change in the future and we'll have some more of that and we'll be able to, you know, coordinate people coming through at various different time.

But right now we're going to try to a more targeted approach so we will be more, more, more than likely targeting those individuals and reaching out to them and identifying them either by age or by medical condition. Or also in that group or some other people congregate settings, congregate living settings so we might be targeting those populations and reaching out to them to make that happen.

Perry Miller, Brookings Radio: Jason, would that happen through people's doctors, for example, if they have two underlying medical conditions or, of course, if they're over 80, it's a little more clear cut. Does that go through the doctors and the clinics or how would that work? Do you know at this point?

Jason Merkley, Brookings Health System: Good question. I think the answer is we don't really know at this point in time. I will say that I have reached out to the clinics in town so my guess is that the two or more underlying medical conditions I do believe Sanford and Avera will be identifying those people through their electronic health records and be reaching out to those folks because that's where that is more likely to happen than from a hospital perspective.

And then it might be something else on the people that are over 80 or as we work down these age groups or the people in a congregate living setting. So it's a little bit of a mixture of both different formats that might have to happen with this group 1D.

Perry Miller, Brookings Radio: Jason, has Brookings County seen more of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine. Is it been a mix or primarily one or the other?

Jason Merkley, Brookings Health System: We have seen more of the Moderna of vaccine at this point in time. The allocations seem to be coming to us on that front more than the Pfizer.

Perry Miller, Brookings Radio: And the Moderna is a little easier to handle, isn't it?

Jason Merkley, Brookings Health System: It does have a better handling and storage capacity for us, and that's part of the reason why we have seen that Pfizer has been allocated to the larger Metro areas because they have the freezer capability of handling those where we have Moderna we have the capability to store that here. And then we have, if it's refrigerated, I believe it's up to about 30 days to use it when you open a vile and bring it out, you only have about 5 days, I believe, but that's part of the reason why we're seeing more Moderna.

Perry Miller, Brookings Radio: Gotcha.

John Kubal, The Brookings Register: You use the term, Jason, a pod, and understandably the way you described it, this is not going to be a pod per se. So there is not going to be one central location that they will go to for these vaccinations.

Jason Merkley, Brookings Health System: It's just really...unfortunately, I wish that were the case, John and I wish we could do that, but the allocations for a pod let's face it, in order for them to be efficient, to stand up a pod takes a lot of resources. Not to mention it takes a lot of resources on our behalf here to do this.

But to do a pod, you know, you're talking, my initial conversations with Bob Hill and his team, you know, we were thinking that, you know, until you have 1,000 doses available, it really doesn't make sense to go stand up a pod in, you know, excuse me, the Swiftel Center or some other location that we might have to put in place a pod. So I think the answer there is until we have allocations that support a pod, we will probably not be able to go that route.

Perry Miller, Brookings Radio: Jason, how's it gone so far with... I'm sorry, go ahead, John.

John Kubal, The Brookings Register: [crosstalk 00:10:40] they'd be going to get their shots to the clinic or their doctor's office?

Jason Merkley, Brookings Health System: I think it'll be okay. Yeah. I think it will be a mixture. I think we might, we're going to kind of look at all sorts of avenues here. So I think, you know, today for the most part, lots of those shots have been happening through the hospital and we've used our conference rooms to make some of those things happen for the 1A, B, and C. Obviously some of the residents we did those in place, and then same as kind of held true for the clinics that have had some access to vaccines.

I think in the future, we'll probably use the clinics. We may be using some travel teams to go out to places to make some of this happen. The pods might be in play here if more vaccine comes our way. And then obviously we may have to try to, again, try to figure out how that might work in the hospital environment to find some space to make some of this happen.

And again, with all the distancing and guidelines in place and the 15-minute really monitoring of symptoms and some of those things after the vaccination to make sure people are good to go, it takes a lot more space to make this happen, and it may have happened for the flu vaccine or something else in the future.

John Kubal, The Brookings Register: Sounds good to me, Jason, a little bit like a moving target with those various subsets within one Delta, then you will go down the line there as you get more vaccine and kind of keep that procedure going.

Jason Merkley, Brookings Health System: Most definitely. And along that line is the kind of I say, fluidity of associated with this is there's so many moving parts. Communication becomes so critical, that's what we're trying to do this. We're getting lots of people that are calling in wanting to get vaccinated or get on the list. What I would encourage people to do is, you know, hold on, we will get to you. Realize that vaccine is very limited and we'll try to get to you as soon as we possibly can.

We will put out lots of communication when it's your turn, you'll have the ability to call in, you'll have the ability to get scheduled, or we'll be reaching out through some other format to you to make sure that that happens and get you part of whatever process that is that we kind of figure out how to work through this big group of individuals.

Perry Miller, Brookings Radio: Jason, how's the participation been so far? Do you have any idea? I mean, I think with healthcare workers, it must be in their benefit obviously to get vaccinated, but some of those other groups like police officials, things like that, how are the vaccinations going? I mean, are you seeing 100% participation, 95%. Do you have any idea?

Jason Merkley, Brookings Health System: Sure. So I think it varies by group. And so you're right, I think most frontline healthcare workers, they've been exposed to this, they've seen the challenges associated with COVID. They've seen people have many challenges with that so they're more apt to get probably the vaccine.

And I think others who in other categories probably aren't as apt to do so and we haven't seen as much of an uptake in some categories that we've seen in 1C. Now, that being said, I think we're right around that 50%, 55% uptake in the population that we've seen through A, B, and C. Again, don't have C all done so there's potential that might be a little high because we have seen some individuals or some groups in those categories maybe a little bit less than that 50%, 60% category. But right now we're in that, in between there from a percentage standpoint.

Perry Miller, Brookings Radio: When it gets to the whole population, what is the effective number to basically have immunity? Is it like 80% something like that?

Jason Merkley, Brookings Health System: Oh boy, don't quote me on this, but I've heard it's somewhere right around there that 75%, 80%, kind of immunity range is what we would need to try to achieve.

John Kubal, The Brookings Register: Jason, is there a pretty good assurance that a second dose is gonna be available after we march through these groups here?

Jason Merkley, Brookings Health System: Okay. So what we've been doing up to this point in time is the allocations have been basically being withheld and so they've been guaranteeing the second dose. Now there's lots of information out there over the past few days of how they're going to try to handle that differently moving forward from a supply perspective.

I will tell you that there's a lot of varying opinions in regards to whether or not that's beneficial, how long immunity lasts, lots of other things associated with that. So if individuals only are able to get one dose, we would think that there's possibilities. We just don't know enough information of how long that might last and so we in this state as of yesterday or last night have talked about, you know, we want to get vaccine as out as fast as we possibly can.

However, we also do, as we move into some of these very vulnerable groups, 80 and over and 2 underlying medical conditions and 70 and 65-year-olds, we all seen what the virus does to this population and so we want to try to make sure that that second dose is available for those individuals.

So those allocations have up to this point in time, still been coming out to guarantee that second dose. I don't know what that looks like in the future. I personally would like to see us still continue to try to guarantee those second doses because I think it's best from an immunity perspective and certainly for this population that we're moving into.

Perry Miller, Brookings Radio: Jason, any reports of adverse reactions to the vaccine in Brookings County that you've heard of?

Jason Merkley, Brookings Health System: We have not had any at our location that have been anything outside of very minor for our reactions to the vaccine.

John Kubal, The Brookings Register: We've got all we need, Jason, unless you got more to throw our way.

Julia Yoder, Brookings Health System: Anything else you have, Perry?

Perry Miller, Brookings Radio: No, I think I'm good. Thanks, Jason, Julia. Appreciate it.

Julia Yoder, Brookings Health System: Yep. All right.

Jason Merkley, Brookings Health System: The only thing I would say is if I could just stress the grace and certainly some patience in this process, we are doing the absolute best we possibly can given what we're getting. And we're not sitting on vaccine. You've seen that South Dakota ranks up there in the top, you know, two or three or four or something in the country on getting out the doses.

So kudos to my staff and to staff around the state through Avera and Sanford monument and [inaudible 00:13:52] up in Watertown and some others that are working through this process to make some of this happen. So lots of things happen in very fluid process. We're doing a great job getting it out and we'll continue to do so.