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Florida is preparing to receive two coronavirus vaccines that could reach the state within three weeks, Governor Ron DeSantis said. announced Thursday on Twitter.
He said the state has identified five Florida hospitals, including Tampa General, that have the capacity to store and distribute millions of doses made by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna, possibly by the end of December.
Both companies have reported 95 percent effectiveness of their COVID-19 vaccines. DeSantis said they will be shipped nationwide within 24 hours of approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which he expects to happen in three to six weeks.
Florida is ready with millions of syringes, needles and alcohol wipes to distribute the drugs, the governor said. The state is also working to get the vaccines shipped to CVS and Walgreens pharmacies, which will work with approximately 2,000 long-term care facilities to distribute the drugs to residents.
DeSantis also announced a new antibody treatment available for coronavirus patients with mild to moderate symptoms. The first dose was administered Wednesday at Tampa General, the hospital said. It has been highly successful in clinical trials, reducing the hospitalization rate for those patients by 70 percent, the governor said.
During treatment, patients are given IV proteins called monoclonal antibodies that neutralize the virus and prevent it from spreading. They block a protein in the virus before it can enter human cells and cause disease, according to Tampa General.
Speaking about vaccines, DeSantis stressed that no one would be forced to take them. But he added: “However, I think these advances probably represent the greatest rays of hope that we have seen since the pandemic began. They offer the prospect of saving thousands upon thousands of lives, and could potentially end this pandemic. “
Florida reported more than 9,000 new cases and 81 additional deaths from the coronavirus on Thursday, part of a week-long surge in infections across the country, including the Tampa Bay region.
Along with Tampa General, four other hospitals will receive vaccines: AdventHealth Orlando, UF Health Jacksonville, Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood and Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.
Tampa General posted a recorded internal interview with Dr. Seetha Lakshmi, an infectious disease physician and associate epidemiologist at the hospital, and a professor at the University of South Florida School of Medicine.
He said the vaccines are expected to arrive in Tampa General in the coming weeks, though he doesn’t know exactly when or how many there will be. Lakshmi and others at the hospital had a call with Florida Surgeon General Scott Rivkees Thursday afternoon, but the state did not provide details on any of those points, hospital spokesman Philip Buck said.
Frontline healthcare workers who are “at risk of contracting COVID-19 because of their work” will be the first to receive the vaccine, Lakshmi said. He did not say which groups he would be available to next.
Similarly, AdventHealth Orlando said in a statement that “many details will be worked out in the coming weeks and months.”
During a morning briefing presented online, Dr. Tim Hendrix, AdventHealth’s chief medical officer for urgent care services, said much is still unknown, including who will get the vaccine first. However, he said it will be “several weeks or months” before the immunization is available to the general public.
“This is exciting,” Hendrix said. “But it is also a lot of work. … There are many unknowns, but we are preparing for those unknowns. “
DeSantis stressed that while news about the vaccine gets the most attention, the antibody treatment created by drug company Eli Lilly is just as significant.
The infusion-based single-dose treatment is provided on an outpatient basis and provides protection to COVID-19 patients who have mild or moderate symptoms to prevent their condition from worsening. It marks a “dramatic shift” in coronavirus care, Tampa General said in a news release.
Lakshmi explained it like this: Antibodies are like bullets, shooting down the virus so that the “soldier” or immune cells can defeat it.
The state surveyed all of its hospitals to determine demand for the treatment, which takes about two hours to complete. He passed that information on to the federal government, which determined the amount of medicine to send to each hospital.
About 3,000 doses have arrived in Florida in recent days, DeSantis said, and hospitals are beginning to administer them. A similar amount will arrive each week for the foreseeable future, he said.
DeSantis said Regeneron, another drug company, is developing a similar treatment. Pending emergency use authorization from the FDA, which the governor says should come in the “relatively near future.”
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