OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma State Department of Health is reserving the first batch of COVID-19 vaccine for frontline health care workers.
State health officials discussed with reporters Thursday their developing three-phase approach to distributing a vaccine. Their plan is being drawn up for submission to the federal government by Nov. 1 — the earliest date a vaccine might be rolled out.
Officials couldn’t speak to how realistic or unrealistic the Nov. 1 date is for a potential vaccine release, only that the state will have its comprehensive plan submitted in time.
Jackie Shawnee, chief of communications for the Health Commissioner’s Office, said the state’s first stage is prioritized based on the CDC recommendation to give the initial doses to health care workers who are most at risk.
“Our planning factor for vaccinations that will be made available to Oklahoma is about 1%, so approximately 20,000 to 30,000 doses,” Shawnee said.
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Shawnee noted that there aren’t any details or dates available yet for when vaccine manufacturing might ramp up enough to meet a larger demand that signals the second stage.
Shawnee said there likely will be sufficient supply to meet demand in Phase 2, expanding beyond the initial populations. The vaccine then will be offered through health-care, public-health and commercial settings.
“Phase 2 we’re anticipating more of a pod-style, similar to what you’ve seen in distributing testing for COVID,” she said.
The third stage likely will have sufficient vaccine supply to allow open access through a more normal or routine strategy, such as private partner sites and continuing public-health sites as required, Shawnee said.
Dr. William Hildebrand, an OU Medicine virologist working on COVID-19 vaccine research, spoke on the many unknowns and hurdles to overcome to successfully deliver and distribute a vaccine.
Hildebrand said that researchers in March began taking what scientists already knew about previous viruses — SARS-CoV-1 and MERS — to rapidly construct vaccines.
Biotechnology companies haven’t put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, he said. They are developing different types of vaccines that have different requirements.
For example, he said, an RNA vaccine will require freezing and two doses. An adenovirus vaccine probably will need refrigeration and one dose. So it’s difficult to know how many Oklahomans might receive vaccines in the initial wave.
Hildebrand said phase 3 clinical trials will help determine which vaccines not only work best, but which ones will do better in certain age groups that also will affect who gets what.
“This is really an exciting time because you are witnessing something that nobody’s ever done before,” Hildebrand said. “We’ve never developed a vaccine in parallel with manufacturing before we’ve known precisely how it works.”
Interim Health Commissioner Dr. Lance Frye called it a “very large task” to put together a plan encompassing all sorts of unknown variables at this point, including storage and transportation needs.
But the state is partnering with several agencies, including the National Guard, to deliver its plan before the White House’s Nov. 1 deadline, Frye said.
“We will be prepared; we will have our plan sent in in time,” Frye said.
He also noted that vaccine clinical trials are in need of more diverse participants to sign up to generate better data to evaluate efficacy.
Clarification: A headline on this story misidentified to whom vaccines would first be distributed. Only those front-line health workers who are most at-risk will be in that group.
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