MADISON, WI (WTAQ) — Wisconsin is set to get a little under 50,000 doses of the new COVID-19 vaccine expected to be approved for emergency use as soon as next week.
The vaccine, from Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, will be distributed through what state officials call a ‘hub and spoke’ model in which the vaccine is first sent to central distribution center before being sent out to clinics, as the vaccine requires very, very cold storage to remain viable, -95 below zero, to be exact.
“Distributing COVID-19 vaccine will be the most significant public health undertaking of our lifetimes,” Deputy DHS secretary Julie Willems Van Dijk said Monday.
The Moderna vaccine, which is also expected to be approved within the coming weeks, does not require super cold storage and will be sent out directly to clinics when it becomes available.
Both vaccines are mRNA vaccines, which is a relatively new type of vaccine that does not use living nor dead viruses to provoke an immune response in the body.
“It actually contains just a small part of the ‘spike’ of the COVID-19 coronavirus and that is used to generate an immune response,” said Dr. Stephanie Schauer who is in charge of the state’s vaccination strategy.
Both vaccines will also require a second dose, taken several weeks after the first, to be effective long-term.
Healthcare workers will be the first to get the vaccine, followed by those in long-term care facilities. After that, Willems Van Dijk says, the Advisory Panel on Immunization Practices, an independent council, will likely determine who gets it next. As such, it may be months before healthy people under the age of 65 have their shot at receiving a vaccine.
Van Dijk says that means COVID-19 restrictions and recommendations for businesses and schools will likely remain in place well into the new year.
“I know everyone is excited and we’d love to take our masks off by Valentines day,” Van Dijk said. “But that’s just not going to happen. It’s going to be later in 2021.”
The Food and Drug Administration is meeting this week on emergency approval for Pfizer’s vaccine.
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