Hospitals across Illinois are ready to administer COVID-19 vaccines. | Stock Photo at Getty Images
Hospitals across Illinois are ready to administer COVID-19 vaccines. | Stock Photo at Getty Images
Illinois hospitals across the state say they have spent weeks to ready themselves in preparation for the arrival and distribution of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, NBC 5 Chicago News reported.
“We’re ready for it,” Dr. Michael Kelleher, chief medical officer at AMITA Health Mercy Medical Center in Aurora, told NBC 5 Chicago News.
Kelleher said in the NBC 5 Chicago News report that at least 6,000 AMITA Mercy frontline workers will need vaccinations, but he is unsure how many doses they will actually get from the federal government.
It is unclear how many vaccine doses will initially be distributed to each medical facility in the state of Illinois
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“We don’t know what our allocation is going to be and that’s complicated our planning a bit,” Kelleher told NBC 5 Chicago News.
“The last number I heard, the state of Illinois would allocate 80,000 doses initially, but I don’t think we’ll really know that number is for sure until the Illinois Department of Public Health gives us further guidance on that," Kelleher said in the news report.
Pfizer says that each vaccine will need to be administered in two doses. Each vial of the vaccine contains about five doses when diluted and must be stored at -70 degrees Celsius.
AMITA Mercy has one ultra cold freezer at a hospital in Chicago and, as of Dec. 3, will soon receive another freezer within a week.
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