The first vaccines for COVID-19 could get federal approval this week, and officials at Bryan Health can't wait.
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to give emergency approval of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine Thursday, which means Bryan could receive vaccine doses as early as Friday.
Bob Ravenscroft, Bryan's vice president of advancement, said Tuesday that the health system expects about 3,000 doses in the first shipment.
Bryan will vaccinate its own employees, and the first phase will focus on doctors, nurses and other staff members who have direct contact with patients. That will include hospital employees, as well as those working at its urgent care centers and in its Bryan Physician Network.
Ravenscroft said Bryan will do a run-through Friday before doing actual vaccinations.
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"We are gearing up, anticipating the FDA approval," he said.
The initial doses will be given out as one shot to up to 3,000 people. The Pfizer vaccine requires two doses, but Bryan is expecting to receive additional doses within the next month to administer the second dose.
CHI Health also Tuesday said it is expecting about 5,800 initial total vaccine doses, 975 of which would go to CHI St. Elizabeth in Lincoln.
CHI Health CEO Dr. Cliff Robertson said he expects the health system to receive vaccine shipments by the weekend, with staff vaccinations beginning as early as Monday and continuing "until we run out of vaccine."
Neither Bryan nor CHI Health will require employees to get the vaccine.
As for whether employees who have recovered from COVID-19 will be vaccinated, Bryan officials said they had not received any guidance on that yet, while Robertson said any CHI Health staff member who has had the disease within the past 90 days will likely be a lower priority for vaccinations.
The Pfizer vaccine will be arriving at a time when new case numbers and hospitalizations have declined in Nebraska, although officials are worried about another spike because of Thanksgiving.
COVID-19 deaths, on the other hand, have been skyrocketing.
Nebraska as a whole had more than 200 deaths last week, and Lancaster County had 19 in the first week of December alone.
Ravenscroft said the number of COVID-19 deaths at Bryan now stands at 125, which is more than double what it was just two months ago. More than half of those deaths have been people from outside Lancaster County.
"It is a very hard thing to deal with," for nurses, doctors and other staff, he said.
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