First Minnesotans could get COVID-19 vaccine Christmas week

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The first of 183,000 Minnesotans who will get the new coronavirus vaccine in the initial wave could get their shots as early as Christmas week, Gov. Tim Walz and state health officials announced Tuesday.

“So perhaps an early Christmas present,” the state’s infectious disease director, Kris Ehresmann, said at a briefing for reporters.

Minnesota is poised to receive 46,800 doses of the Pfizer vaccine next week, followed by 136,000 of the Moderna vaccine in the two weeks after that, for a total of 183,400 doses within the first month. But state officials cautioned that the information they’re getting from the federal government keeps changing, and schedules for future deliveries are uncertain.

Residents will get their second shots about three or four weeks later. Ehresmann said it takes about six weeks from the first dose to receive full protection.

Minnesota will follow federal guidance for the first doses to go to people designated as Phase 1a, which means health care personnel and long-term care facility residents. The state won’t get enough vaccine at first to immunize all 500,000 Minnesotans who fall into that category, Ehresmann said. There are subsets within that category, with the top priorities being personnel who have the most direct contact with COVID-19 patients, as well as residents of skilled nursing facilities.

Pending final federal guidance, the state currently expects Phase 1b to consist of essential workers — police, firefighters and corrections officers, as well as certain workers in the education, food and agriculture, utility and transportation sectors. Phase 1c would include people with high-risk medical conditions and residents 65 years old and older. But Ehresmann said those classifications could change.

People who get vaccinated will get cards certifying that they’ve been immunized. She suggested that people photograph them in case they lose them.

Details about when the general public can get the vaccine have not been determined, but it will probably take six months before the immunizations become commonplace. Walz and Ehresmann said Minnesotans can help speed the end of the pandemic by observing the state’s coronavirus safety rules, including wearing masks in public indoor spaces, social distancing and staying home when sick.

“We have got to stop the community spread. We have got to slow this thing down,” Walz said. “Even with this vaccine, the analogy they said was that the vaccine’s a firehose. It’s a pretty darn big one. But even at that, the fire is so big it’s hard to put it out. Our job can be to shrink the fire by not getting it to spread, and the vaccine will help us put it out.”

The vaccines will be delivered directly from manufacturers to 25 hubs— hospitals that can keep the doses at the required ultracold temperatures— that will in turn supply 118 smaller clinics that will supply other providers.

Walz said a test run of the distribution chain in Dakota County without actual vaccine last week was successful and kept the container cold enough. The governor said they learned in developing the plan that supplies of dry ice, which is essential for keeping the vaccine cold, could get tight in the region because it’s also used for keeping cheese cultures cold. But he noted that they developed backup plans for getting it.

“We are absolutely committed to getting the vaccine to every Minnesotan that wants and should be vaccinated,” Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said. “And we are not going to stop our efforts until everyone is vaccinated that wants to be. But in the meantime we ask for your patience.”

The Democratic governor was joined by the four top leaders from both parties in the Minnesota Legislature who endorsed the distribution plan. Republican Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, of East Gull Lake, and GOP House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, of Crown, also thanked the Trump administration for its Operation Warp Speed to develop the vaccines, and Walz agreed.

“This really is the step that it’s going to take to get our economy back open, to get kids out from behind their iPads and back into classrooms, and to relieve the pressure on our health care institutions and our hospitals and our clinics, and make sure that we’re keeping those who are the most vulnerable in our society safe,” Daudt said.