DECATUR, Ga. — The first of the Moderna vaccines was shipped to Atlanta on Tuesday. State officials said Georgia is getting 174,000 doses – which exceeds the first Pfizer allocation received last week.
The Atlanta VA Medical Center received 3,600 doses of the Moderna vaccine on Tuesday.
A VA photographer documented the first shipments of the Moderna vaccine rolling into the Decatur facility, The chilled packages of the vaccine were encased in a cooler. The first healthcare workers got their shots a short time later – producing a rare moment of hope in the months-long pandemic battle.
"To now ... be looking toward the other side, it’s just so exciting," said Kathy DeSilva, clinical pharmacist at the VA. "I’m about to tear up."
There are a half-million health care workers in Georgia, in line to get inoculated from these first shipments of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines. But, healthcare workers think the Moderna vaccine will be more accessible to a wider set of people because the Pfizer vaccine has super-cold storage and shipping requirements.
"There are parts of rural Georgia, including our own public health departments, that weren't able to receive them," said Dr. Kathleen Toomey, Georgia's public health director. "Now, with the Moderna vaccine, we can literally cover the state with vaccinations."
The vaccines come as the number of Georgia’s COVID cases set new records Tuesday – with more sickness, more hospitalizations, more deaths. State officials say it’ll take much of January, just to vaccinate front-line workers, 17,500 of whom have gotten inoculated so far.
"That number will increase dramatically over the next days and weeks ahead," Toomey said.
What Toomey described as “the broader community,” won’t start getting vaccinated until late January or February, depending on how it goes in the coming days and how much vaccine is available.
Eventually, Toomey hopes to have what she calls mass-vaccinations at grocery stores, pharmacies, and elsewhere -- "not unlike the drive-through influenza vaccines we’ve done in public health and working with the pharmacies," she said. "So we’re going to use as many different venues as we can and different partners as we can to cover the state."
Workers in what state officials call “critical infrastructure” roles – like schoolteachers – will be part of the next vaccination phase, likely to start about a month from now, once the CDC gives its blessing.