Georgia received its first doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, providing hope to many that the tide is turning in the fight against the coronavirus.
With vaccination efforts picking up steam, the pandemic roared ahead, setting new state records for hospitalizations. The Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) reached record-breaking single day hospitalizations, surpassing 3,200.
Sixteen Georgia hospitals reported that their intensive care units were so full that they couldn’t accept more ICU patients. Still more were turning away ambulances from their emergency rooms.
The University Hospital in Augusta said it admitted 22 new COVID-19 patients overnight Tuesday to Wednesday, for a new peak of 110 hospitalized. The system’s previous record was 105, during the summer surge.
“This surge has required us to reopen two and possibly three negative air pressure cohort units in the main hospital,” spokeswoman Rebecca Sylvester said in an email.
Here’s a look at major developments related to the coronavirus over the past week.
Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com
Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com
State learns it will get fewer vaccine doses
Georgia hospitals from Atlanta to Albany to Gainesville to Conyers finally began long-awaited vaccinations of their health care workers.
“We want to get the vaccine because we’re exhausted,” said Dr. Gayla Dillard, a surgeon at Piedmont Healthcare, who got vaccinated Thursday. She had to put a trachea tube in a colleague who is in the ICU with COVID-19.
Shannan Browning, a neonatal ICU nurse, came to tears after getting her shot at Piedmont. “Just knowing how hard my co-workers are working,” she said. “It’s really the ICU nurses, the ER nurses, the nurses on (regular hospital wards), the respiratory therapists. ... Nurses work a 12- to 13-hour shift every day anyway. But they’re working those many more days a week than they normally do. And those days are just constant.”
The first doses of the vaccine are going to health care workers and nursing home residents. Vaccines for the broader public will not be available for months.
Meanwhile, Georgia was among several states to report that their expected allotments of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines have been cut by 40%, amid conflicting explanations from the federal vaccination operation and Pfizer.
Pfizer reduced the second allocation to Georgia to 60,000 doses, rather than the 99,000 doses the state previously had been told it would receive, said Department of Public Health spokeswoman Nancy Nydam.
The federal officials managing the distribution traded excuses with Pfizer, which insisted to The Washington Post that the vaccines were sitting ready for distribution as soon as the U.S. paperwork arrived. A spokesperson for the federal response told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that there were no reductions because the only official allocation amounts were the ones given this week.
The shifting numbers make planning a vaccination campaign a struggle. Hospitals have had to schedule vaccination clinics and put them on hold.
“This is going to be a heavy logistical lift for the state,” Gov. Brian Kemp said. “We have never undergone such a large mass vaccination campaign in our history. And just as there has been in each new chapter of the pandemic response issues, there will be challenges and hurdles that we have to clear.”
Kemp acknowledged the hospitals’ plight as he visited Grady Memorial Hospital Thursday to watch the state’s public health commissioner, Dr. Kathleen Toomey, receive the vaccine shot herself and to announce continued funding for temporary staff.
Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com
Credit: Alyssa Pointer / Alyssa.Pointer@ajc.com
Shortages and a surge
Hospital leaders said their main reason for refusing to take more patients is not a lack of physical space, but a shortage of critical care nurses.
“Staffing is our greatest challenge, particularly nurses,” said Rebecca Sylvester, a spokeswoman for University Health Care System in Augusta, which is breaking all-time records daily for COVID-19 patients. “It is hard to maintain the intensity — physically and emotionally — required, especially to care for COVID patients. When staff stepped up and volunteered for those units, they never dreamed we’d still be in the midst of a pandemic more than nine months later.”
Vaccines: a green light and a roadblock
The Fulton County Board of Health received its first batch of the Pfizer vaccine on Thursday, 600 of the 2,750 doses it ordered, said Dr. Lynn Paxton, head of the state-run Fulton board of health.
It’s great news, but Paxton said she’s still trying to manage expectations.
“There’s simply not enough vaccine to immunize everyone, and we are having to be very, very measured in how we are going to get this out to the people who most need it,” Paxton told Fulton’s elected county commissioners.
Staff writers Greg Bluestein, J. Scott Trubey, Ben Brasch and Eric Stirgus contributed to this article.
