RI lawmakers discuss COVID-19 vaccine distribution in RI

PROVIDENCE — With the arrival of the first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine  weeks and perhaps, only a week away, state lawmakers asked two of Rhode Island's leading spokesmen on health care: How safe is the vaccine?  

What can be done to make sure it gets to the people in the state's poorest, most densely populated communities who cannot afford to risk their jobs by staying home when they should quarantine. 

"How do we prioritize who gets the vaccine?" asked the members of a new House task  force, at their first meeting.

Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, provided the context:  "We are probably in the darkest days of the pandemic. The number of infections continues to rise. ... We hear very clearly from our hospital leadership, that hospitals are really starting to get full."

"No matter what happens, I think we should be in for a pretty tough six to eight weeks ahead. ... We are going to see, unfortunately, a lot of Rhode Islanders get very sick and die of this disease."

In his turn, former state Health Director Dr. Michael Fine, now the chief health strategist for Central Falls, told the lawmakers he hoped Rhode Island would give higher priority to "densely populated communities, which have been hit particularly hard."

"I'm big on expectation management,'' Fine told the lawmakers, "so as excited as I am" about the possibility of getting enough doses to vaccinate 60,000 people in Rhode Island this month — "I think it is worthwhile reviewing some cautions about things that could go wrong."

He cited shipment snafus "that could slow the distribution of the vaccine," as yet unseen side effects, and the impact of known side effects on about 40% of people in test groups, such as fever, fatigue and headaches. 

For those who have side effects, he said they can be "more intense" than is seen with a flu shot, so people should probably be advised to plan for two days out of work after being vaccinated.

He said the administration of the vaccine should probably be phased in for healthcare workers, EMTs, teachers and other frontline workers "because we don't want all of those people to have to be gone at once."

On the safety front, Jha assured the lawmakers "it is physically impossible to get COVID" from any of the vaccines headed for approval in the United States.  

Jha also responded to concerns from the two Republican lawmakers on the panel about the relative speed with which the vaccines were developed. He credited a "combination of luck, really hard work and a relatively easy virus to make vaccines."

He said the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is "a close, close cousin'' to the earlier SARS virus, so "we already knew a lot about this virus ... [and] had a pretty good idea what we would need to target."

Among the lawmakers' stated goals: to make sure "underserved populations are appropriately addressed" and try to find out more about Rhode Island's role in a Pfizer pilot distribution program.

Asked by The Journal in recent days if Rhode Island would be ready to begin vaccine distribution by mid-December, Health Department spokesman Joseph Wendelken said, "Yes, the State has been planning for distribution of COVID-19 vaccine for months and will be ready to begin distribution by mid-December if a vaccine is deemed safe and effective and made available to states."

Asked who would be in charge, Wendelken said, "The Rhode Island Department of Health convened a mass vaccination workgroup to oversee Rhode Island’s distribution effort ... [with] oversight from the Governor’s Office and RIDOH Leadership."

In mid-November, Pfizer announced that Rhode Island was one of four states chosen for a pilot testing program for a delivery system once a vaccine becomes available. 

More:Taking part in Pfizer COVID vaccine pilot is 'good news' for RI, says Health Department

More:RI House of Representatives forms COVID vaccine task force

"They are partnering with us to do planning on some of the logistical challenges associated with a large vaccination effort, such as storage, ordering by health-care providers, data keeping, and temperature maintenance,'' Wendelken said at that time.

"While this does not mean that we will necessarily get vaccine any earlier than other states, it does mean that we will have a leg up, in terms of planning,"  he said.

The governor, meanwhile, pledged in October that any vaccine would be evaluated, before distribution, by a special panel she would appoint that includes epidemiologists, primary-care physicians, pharmacists and pediatricians as well as nonprofit, school and faith leaders.

She said that the panel will also advise on the priorities of vaccine distribution in Rhode Island.

And, once the first dose arrives in the Ocean State, she warned, it may take considerable time for enough people to get vaccinated and to develop immunity to COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

“A vaccine is not a silver bullet,” Raimondo said.

The legislative task force was created to make sure that, as the vaccine becomes available, "front-line workers, the health-compromised and the elderly are given access first," according to the initial mission statement.

Another goal: to make sure "underserved populations are appropriately addressed."

“The stakes are very high here, and we need to do our absolute best with getting this vaccine to our population as quickly as possible," said Rep. K. Joseph Shekarchi, the presumptive next House speaker, the day the legislative task force was announced.

With reports from Journal Staff Writer G. Wayne Miller