Montefiore Medical Center vaccinated its first Montefiore employee with the COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, Dec. 15. Gina Benvenuto, RN, a 36-year-old patient care coordinator at the neuro-intensive care unit who has been with the hospital for 14 years, was the first employee to receive the vaccine. The vaccination process continued thereafter among other Montefiore employees.

At the Bronx Community Board 7 Health committee meeting later that evening, there were plenty of questions about the vaccine roll-out, many on the testing process, with residents looking for reassurances about the robustness of that testing. One resident suggested having representatives from Moderna and Pfizer make a presentation to the Board and give residents the chance to ask questions about their concerns. Committee chair, Michelle Avila, said it was a good suggestion and committed to following up to see if it might be possible.

Avila later circulated a general presentation outlining what the Board knew so far about the two new vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna. The Pfizer vaccine was approved by the FDA on Dec. 11, and the City’s Health department distributed it to New York hospitals last week. The distribution to long-term care facilities is taking place this week.

Under Phase I of the vaccination roll-out, health care workers at high-risk of exposure to COVID-19 are being prioritized for immediate vaccination. According to the research and testing to date, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has shown to be about 95 percent effective in preventing the virus.

Meanwhile, the Moderna vaccine was expected to be approved by the FDA on Thursday, Dec. 17, but was finally approved the next day, on Dec. 18. The additional approval means more vaccines will be available within a short timeframe.

In accordance with the City’s vaccine equity plan, devised by the City’s task force on racial inclusion & equity, Mayor Bill de Blasio had already announced the opening of a COVID-19 vaccine command center on Monday, Dec. 14, to facilitate citywide vaccination. Its purpose is to ensure efficient and equitable vaccine distribution to the city’s 27 hardest-hit neighborhoods through targeted outreach, via a network of trusted community messengers, who will spread accurate and trustworthy information about the vaccines.

The City will focus on these 27 neighborhoods, using NYCHA space, including NYC Health + Hospitals clinics, to vaccinate priority populations, following what was described as the success of the COVID-19 testing partnership with NYCHA. “A vaccine must be distributed equally to be effective,” said de Blasio in an earlier press release. “COVID-19 has exposed our city’s most painful disparities, and we are addressing those inequities head-on and making a vaccine available for all New Yorkers.”

The mayor’s remarks were echoed by the City’s First Lady Chirlane McCray who said, “As our City navigates the path to recovery, the families and communities that have been negatively and disproportionately affected [by COVID-19] must be in the forefront of our efforts to distribute the vaccine.” She added, “When we established the task force on racial inclusion and equity, we set out to identify immediate and long term solutions to help heal and strengthen these communities. With a vaccine on the horizon, it’s time for all of us to engage deeply and rebuild even stronger.”

As part of the roll-out strategy, the City’s health department will host virtual conversations with residents and community leaders in the 27 affected neighborhoods, to share information on vaccine planning, and to give opportunities to community members to raise questions and concerns. Community partners will also have access to a training program on the vaccines, which will allow them to become the trusted messengers needed in the context of the vaccine roll-out.

Headquartered at 253 Broadway, the vaccine command center will provide real-time troubleshooting and rapid response across public and private providers, including urgent care centers, private pharmacies, hospitals, and community vaccination sites.

In terms of distribution, the mayor said the City is expected to receive 465,000 doses of the vaccine by the beginning of January. The first shipments of the vaccine have already arrived at New York hospitals since last week, and have the capacity for ultra-cold storage, a requirement for the Pfizer vaccine. Healthcare personnel in nursing homes have begun receiving the vaccine this week.

Meanwhile in terms of cost, the governor confirmed that New York State health insurers are being instructed to cover the cost of COVID-19 vaccinations. “The New York State Department of Financial Services issued a letter to New York-regulated health insurers directing them to immediately cover, without cost-sharing, approved COVID-19 immunizations and administrations,” he said. “No New Yorker will have to pay a penny to get the vaccine.”

When President Donald Trump first announced the imminent approval of the first vaccine back on Nov. 13, it was reported that Cuomo said he wanted New York State independent officials to also give their seal of approval to any FDA-approved vaccine before it would be rolled out in New York State. This was reportedly interpreted by the president as something of a rebuke of FDA-standards.

Nonetheless, the New York State’s independent COVID-19 Clinical Advisory Task Force duly and independently approved the Moderna vaccine on Friday, Dec. 18, as it had previously done for the Pfizer vaccine. The unanimous vote to approve it followed the FDA vote to recommend Moderna for emergency use authorization the previous evening. Moderna has since been formally authorized by the FDA. The State anticipates receiving 346,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine this week.

The governor appeared pleased with some unexpected news on the vaccine roll-out on Dec. 18, when he said, “The faster we vaccinate people, the quicker new COVID cases go down.” He added, “We have found that in many cases, vaccinators can get as many as six or seven doses from a single ‘five dose’ vial. That means that our supply of vaccine doses is actually bigger than we thought, and more people can be vaccinated during this early stage of the process.”

The State’s health department has duly issued guidance on administering such “extra” doses of the vaccine from the vials. After consulting with the FDA and the vaccine manufacturer, the department has permitted vaccinators to extract more than five doses from a single vial, and to use any extra vaccine that could easily be drawn up in a syringe to meet the 0.3 milliliter dose requirement. It was, however, stipulated that extra vaccine fluid from more than one vial cannot be combined to produce extra doses of the vaccine.

On Monday, Dec. 21, the mayor gave an update on the vaccination roll-out, saying New York City was vaccinating at twice the rate of anywhere else in the country, and that 42.2 percent of the vaccines received to date have been used and administered.

Meanwhile, on the same day, statewide, the governor said more than 38,000 vaccine doses have been administered, the highest reported total of any state in the nation thus far. “The first 346,200 doses of the Moderna vaccine are expected to begin arriving in New York today, with an additional 120,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine expected later this week,” he said on Dec. 21.

Cuomo also confirmed that the State had begun administering vaccines to nursing home residents and staff this week as part of a federal program that partners with pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens to vaccinate nursing home residents and staff at nursing home facilities. There are 618 facilities across the state that will participate in the program.

Finally, the governor said that to help with vaccination efforts, New York is developing community vaccination test kits. “These kits will provide communities, particularly those located within health care deserts, with the supplies and resources needed for standing up vaccination sites,” he said. “They will include materials such as schematics on assembling the space, chairs and tables, computers and other equipment needed to administer the vaccine.”

As reported previously by Norwood News, Congressman Adriano Espaillat, representing New York’s 13th congressional district, which covers the north-west Bronx among other areas, got vaccinated for COVID-19 on Sunday, Dec. 20, at the United States Capitol. Members of Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, and other Executive Branch agencies are provided with COVID-19 vaccine doses in order “to meet long-standing requirements to ensure the continuity of government operations.”

The New York Daily News reported the next day that the CDC confirmed six cases of severe allergic reaction to Pfizer’s COVID vaccine out of the 272,000 shots given so far.

Vice President Mike Pence and Second Lady, Karen Pence had already been vaccinated live on television on Friday Dec. 18, while President-elect Joe Biden and the future First Lady, Dr. Jill Biden, were vaccinated on Monday, Dec. 21, also on live television.

Meanwhile, USA Today reported that amid news of a new strain of the coronavirus emerging in the U.K., New York political leaders had been calling on the federal government to halt flights from the United Kingdom. However, U.S. health officials said they do not yet see a need to halt flights, even amid the rapid spread of a new variant of the coronavirus in London and elsewhere.

On Dec. 22, the CDC acknowledged that it is likely the new strain of the virus is already in the U.S. It’s already been reported to have been detected in other countries outside the U.K., including Denmark.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.