The first COVID-19 vaccines will arrive in Maine

The first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Maine on Monday, part of a larger national rollout and the first small step to end the epidemic.

Northern Light Health officials said the vaccines were delivered Monday to Mercy Hospital in Portland and East Maine Medical Center in Bangor. The hospital team expects leading team physicians to begin vaccinating on Wednesday.

The two hospitals each received 975 doses, and 12,675 doses of the Pfizer vaccine were sent to Maine earlier this week. The initial allocation will be used to protect health workers who live in high-risk and long-term care facilities.

The first ship is only sufficient to protect a portion of the health workers and long-term care residents are considered a high priority. Thousands of additional doses are expected in the coming weeks, although most miners will not have vaccinations until spring or summer.

Distributions reached Maine as the virus increased in Maine and elsewhere, with exports to states around the United States as well.

Maine registered 426 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, the fifth time the government has seen more than 400 cases in a single day.

“We are delighted that the vaccine has come to Northern Light EMMC and Mercy,” said Paul Bolin, senior vice president and chief human resources officer at Northern Light Health when a virtual media outlet became available on Monday. “We expect staff to start early vaccination clinics in a one-phase approach, so employees with high COVID interactions will be vaccinated first.”

Hospitals have already identified the types of staff, including nursing staff, home care and food specialists who frequently interact with COVID-19 patients, and should be vaccinated first. Employees will have scheduled appointments to receive their vaccines and be vaccinated in groups, so an entire department will not be vaccinated at once and will not be able to work if they experience side effects.

Hospitals cannot request staff to receive the vaccine under emergency use authorization, although it is strongly recommended that staff be vaccinated. The initial 1,950 vaccines should be sufficient to cover those with high contact with COVID-positive patients in both EMC and Mercy, Bolin said.

The Maine Medical Center in Portland, which is part of the MineHealth network, expects 1,885 doses and has not received its distribution, but expects it earlier this week, a spokesman said Monday morning.

“We have been planning for several weeks now and we are very ready to receive and distribute the vaccine,” said Maine health spokesman John Porter.

MineHealth, which operates nine hospital systems in the state, including Maine Med, said on Friday that the vaccine would initially be given to direct care providers at its hospitals that saw the highest number of Govt-19 patients. The organization’s spokesperson includes Maine Med, Southern Maine Healthcare and Mid Coast-Parkview Health.

It also said that early vaccinations would be sent to intensive care unit teams, emergency care unit caregivers, caregivers in dedicated COVID-19 inpatient units and other critical and essential inpatient services not available elsewhere.

Early Pfizer vaccine deliveries this week go to large hospitals capable of storing the vaccine in extreme cold freezers. The vaccine developed by Moderna does not need to be placed in a deep freeze, may be distributed next week, and it will be assigned to about 30 small hospitals across the state.

Initial shipments of the Pfizer vaccine will be fitted with the freezer needed to store the vaccine at Northern Light hospitals, officials said Monday. Pauline and James Jarvis, senior physician administrators at Northern Light, expect vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna to be the “most stable ship” until December, and will work to ensure the vaccines are evenly distributed.

This story will be updated.

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