ODESSA, Texas — Midland Memorial Hospital is scheduled to receive a shipment of COVID-19 vaccines soon, but Odessa isn't far behind.
Medical Center Hospital and ORMC are scheduled to be in the second round of shipments and could receive the vaccine as soon as the week of December 21 if everything remains on schedule.
"We’re still slated to have our vaccines the week of the 21st, and we have a call on the 14th in order to get updates on how many we can order and make use of that system that we now have access to," Christin Timmons, MCH chief nursing officer, said.
Odessa could have received the vaccine sooner, but there was an issue with submitting information to the state regarding the COVID-19 vaccine that delayed the city's allocation.
"For Medical Center, I think it was just a miscommunication where people had thought things were submitted and signed off on, but the state thought things were still needed so paths were just crossing. So there hasn’t been any more communication with the state," Timmons said.
Now there is a silver lining with having to wait another week for the vaccine. Timmons believes that seeing how other hospitals roll out and administer the vaccine to see what methods are effective and which ones aren't could be useful when the time comes for the Odessa hospitals to begin vaccine distribution.
"It really gives you an opportunity to see those people that have the first rollout of what impact it had on their staff. Did they have call ins, and then two days after they were given the vaccine, how did they work through the process? Was it smooth when it got there? What do they have to do differently than what they had planned?" Timmons said.
Even though the vaccine will be in Odessa soon, that doesn't mean that a day or even a week after people are vaccinated that people can stop wearing facemasks or taking safety precautions.
"All the precautions will still be in place. All the social distancing principles will still be in place. There will be no change. So the impact of the vaccination program will take probably a month or two to really show how it controls the disease in the community. So that’s the thing to look forward to. Nothing magical happens in a week and a half," Dr. Rohith Saravanan, ORMC chief medical officer, said.