EMMC expects to start vaccinating workers on Wednesday

By Charles Eichacker, Bangor Daily News Staff

The first rounds of coronavirus vaccines have started arriving in Maine, with Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor and its affiliate in Portland, Northern Light Mercy Hospital, both receiving 975 doses on Monday morning. 

The two hospitals expect to start inoculating frontline workers with the recently authorized Pfizer vaccines on Wednesday, prioritizing staff who treat coronavirus patients or may be exposed to the virus during their regular work. 

That could include anyone from nurses to dieticians to housekeeping staff, according to Dr. James Jarvis, who is helping lead the pandemic response for the hospitals’ parent group, Northern Light Health. Another of their affiliates, Northern Light A.R. Gould Hospital in Presque Isle, is expected to receive 215 initial doses of the Pfizer vaccine within the next day or two.

“We’re not prioritizing by anything other than those who come into contact with COVID-19,” Jarvis said. 

Now that the first shipment of Pfizer doses has arrived, they will need to be thawed and prepared for injection, then administered within “a very short time,” Jarvis said. 

While Jarvis said he is “delighted” by the arrival of the first vaccine doses, he also noted that the hospital system is now regularly treating significant numbers of coronavirus patients, and he warned that staff would continue needing to wear protective equipment including face masks and shields for the foreseeable future. 

The hospitals plan to carefully schedule the vaccinations for their workers to keep close track of who has already been inoculated and also to ensure that the workers come back at the appropriate time for the second doses that are required to complete the Pfizer vaccine, according to Jarvis. 

They expect to receive the same number of doses next week, which would allow them to finish the process for the first round of Pfizer vaccine recipients. The second dose is to be administered three weeks after the first, according to USA Today.

Paul Bolin, senior vice president and chief human resources officer at the Northern Light, said the initial round of Pfizer doses will be enough to start the vaccine process for all staff at EMMC, Mercy and A.R. Gould who treat coronavirus-infected patients.  

Northern Light’s other hospitals in communities such as Ellsworth and Dover-Foxcroft are slated to start receiving shipments of another coronavirus vaccine from the company Moderna beginning next week, assuming it also receives emergency authorization from the FDA, which the Pfizer vaccine received on Friday. The Moderna vaccine must also be administered in two doses, spaced four weeks apart.

Because the Pfizer vaccine must be stored at extremely cold temperatures, its initial shipments have been directed to Maine hospitals that have the ability to store it in ultra cold freezers. The Moderna vaccine does not need to be stored at those exceptionally cold temperatures, which means more of the state’s hospitals will have the ability to provide it to their workers.  

After Northern Light Health medical providers were able to review the research behind the Pfizer vaccine when it received emergency approval on Friday, “we feel confident this vaccine is both safe and effective in helping to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” Jarvis said.