[Rx2021] COVID-19 Vaccine

[Kroboth, Patricia D]

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The COVID-19 vaccine is in the news and media daily.  Seemingly everyone wants it and there is not enough of it. Thank you, pharmacists and student pharmacists who are vaccinating to save lives and thank you to those of our faculty and staff who are on the front lines daily.

Amidst all that, many of you are asking, “What about me?  When will I get my opportunity to be vaccinated?” I, too, am asking those questions.

When I have specific information, I will share it either directly or through others in the most expedient ways.  I do have a few points of information to share now.

Faculty of the School of Pharmacy and members of the administration at Pitt has been advocating for all of us.

Institutions are obligated to follow the guidelines being provided by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Federal Government, each of which distributes vaccine to different entities.

Some good news:  The PA Department of Health is requiring that institutions that have received vaccine reserve 10 percent of the allocation for individuals who are not direct employees of their respective institutions and who are health care professionals.  While that could include people (faculty/students) from PittPharmacy, it could also include individuals from all the other schools of the health sciences. . . and there are many individuals on our campus alone. The amount of vaccine and timing is all unknown.

More hope:  It is possible that institutions of higher education, such as Pitt, will receive an allocation of vaccine.  We don’t know how much would be allocated, how soon that would be, and how the priorities for distribution will be established.

None of us is in the position of being the decision maker, though we are engaged in all the ways we can:  with the State Department of Health, with leaders at Pitt and UPMC, with the statewide network of independent pharmacies, and with pharmacy and grocery chains.  Until we are vaccinated—and even after that—let’s do what we have been doing that since March:  working to stay healthy in the ways we can.  As knowledgeable healthcare professionals, we have that responsibility so that we can are for those in in our chain of daily responsibilities.

May 2021 be a year full of hope, health and happiness.

 [pdk_sig]

NOTE:  An article in the New York Times Magazine this past Sunday, “Who Gets It First” is a printed forum about the COVID-19 vaccine. The article makes it clear that establishing priorities is extremely complicated.  Panelists include a bioethicist, a director of public health (an internist and pediatrician), a professor of epidemiology, professor of medicine and oncology, and a professor of security and global health. Should the goal be to preserve the maximum number of “life years” based on remaining life expectancy and risk of dying if COVID-19 is contracted?  How should quality of life remaining be considered? What about risk factors apart from age, societal benefit to education, people in roles of saving lives of others be taken account?  What about the rest of the world?

Making these decisions for 328 million people is a huge responsibility.  Again, may you be well.
Patricia D Kroboth, Dean
Dr. Gordon J. Vanscoy Distinguished Service Professor
School of Pharmacy
University of Pittsburgh

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