1. What do we know now and what is still in development about a COVID-19 vaccine?

There are 13 vaccines in phase 3 trials, the final stage for testing if a new vaccine holds promise being approved by FDA. The jury is out as to which will be first and it’s too soon to know which ones will be useful

2. What is Valley’s vaccine task force doing to prepare for a vaccine?

Valley has a task force of staff from Pharmacy, Clinic Network, Infectious Disease, IT, Safety and Quality working on advance preparation in cooperation with UW and DOH. Despite the unknown factors about which vaccine will be ready first and when it will be ready, we want to be ready for delivering it. The main preparation tasks include the following:

• Participating in government and academic surveys and programs to assess local needs for vaccine quantity or staffing needs for delivery.
• Enrolling in government programs to gain access to vaccination for our clinics and hospital.
• Creating a progressive target list for employee vaccinations based on highest risk of COVID exposure and procedural risks, while also creating a similar list for patient vaccinations based on risk for severe infection.
• The pharmacy is working on anticipated acquisition, storage and distribution requirements.
• IT is identifying a means to record employee and patient information, including tracking the vaccination delivery data for each person. This also provides a framework for safety monitoring.
• Distribution and vaccination systems are being developed, including where, when and how the vaccination program will operate.
• Daily monitoring and reacting to vaccine news is done by Incident Command and Infectious Disease specialists.

3. How will vaccine delivery be prioritized for Valley employees and for patients?

For patients, the CDC, DOH and UW are working on criteria for prioritizing vaccination for patients, which will most likely be the patients who are at highest risk if they get COVID-19. For Valley staff, priority considerations include the clinicians doing the higher-risk procedures and those who are caring for COVID-positive patients. Next will be staff who are at highest risk and others who deliver direct patient care. When the final prioritization list is confirmed it will be shared with staff.

4. Do we have a timeline for when at least one vaccine will be ready?

We don’t have an anticipated date yet for the FDA to approve a vaccine. There could be limited availability of a vaccine as early as December with some available as late as next Fall.

5. How will vaccine safety and efficacy be determined?

Everyone who will get vaccinated will be enrolled in a registry. Cooperation with major programs such as Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), Post-licensure Rapid Immunization Safety Monitoring System (PRISM) and Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) are programs that provide information sharing between the CDC, FDA, and major health programs such as Kaiser, large health data bases, vaccination experts, academic institutions and local health care organizations and pharmacies.