By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net 

VACCINATION sites across New Providence will have the capacity to vaccinate over 2,000 people daily once the country has enough supplies, according to the National COVID-19 Vaccine Consultative Committee Deputy Chair Ed Fields.

According to committee officials, people age 65 and older will also now be able to book their vaccine appointments online.

Vaccination sites already identified include Princess Margaret Hospital, Doctors Hospital, Loyola Hall as well as several other medical facilities.

Two of those sites have since been officially launched – PMH and Loyola Hall on Gladstone Road, the latter of which began operations yesterday.

An official also confirmed that Doctors Hospital began vaccinating their staff yesterday, but is not yet administering shots to the Bahamian public.

However, healthcare workers can still book their vaccine appointments with the local hospital through its online system which went live yesterday.

Meanwhile, Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre is expected to begin vaccinations today and Grand Bahama Health Services on Monday.

Speaking to reporters at Loyola Hall, Mr Fields said officials had initially planned to roll out the identified sites simultaneously, but decided against it after conducting their pilot phase on Sunday.

“We had planned to open all of the institutions in one day, but we did a pilot on Sunday and as a result of the pilot, we determined ‘hey, the best strategy to do is to open in a staggered way so that we can be as efficient as possible,’” he said.

According to Mr Fields, the Gladstone Road facility has the capacity to vaccinate up to 500 people a day. Meanwhile, at Princess Margaret Hospital, officials estimate that workers there can vaccinate a minimum of 120 workers a day.

He also said that if the country had enough vaccine supply, workers could vaccinate 2,500 people in New Providence daily.

“Right now, we have this particular centre opened,” Mr Fields said of Loyola Hall. “This is opened to 500…We have eight stations here and we can do so many half an hour and so many an hour today.

“Princess Margaret can do (and) they’re doing about 80 or so a day and they can expand that and they’re doing that on demand. We’re going to go to Sandilands today to look at their capacity. Doctors Hospital has the capacity to do about 100 and something a day and so the capacity is commensurate with what the supply is and what those facilities can do because you have to have enough space and vaccinators.”

He added: “…If we had all the vaccines in the world, we could do 2,500 people a day because we have the sites already identified. We have the sites already planned. We are even looking through drive-through sites so we’re ready to go once we get the supply.”

Individuals eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in the first phase include: healthcare workers in the public sector, and private sector healthcare workers participating in the vaccination rollout; residents and staff of eldercare homes and non-ambulatory residents registered in the public health system; and staff of the uniformed branches.

It was previously announced that critical workers in high-risk settings and other essential services would also be included in the first priority group.

However, Mr Fields confirmed that protocols have changed due to limited vaccine supply.

It is also not clear who will be in the next priority group, with Mr Fields only telling reporters that the matter will be dependent on several factors. He said the committee will provide additional updates in the days ahead.

“Right now, we have 20,000 doses, that’s the supply,” he told reporters. “The demand is so much greater so we’re focused right now on healthcare workers and some nursing homes, etc, and as we see the uptick, we will then strategise where we go next so we have to be very cautious in terms of how we distribute based on our supply so, we want to ensure that given the uncertainty of supply that we have enough of the second dose for the people who would’ve taken it this go.”

He added: “We are in a situation where every day is another strategy depending on supply… and we will have to look to see if the supply that we were promised at the end of March is coming in and we may have to change the strategy again based on that. So, what we can promise to do is make sure we keep you updated and we do.”

Asked how many frontline workers are expected to be vaccinated in the first phase, Mr Fields could not say. However, he estimated that there could be a total of some 20,000 workers in the healthcare and uniformed branches sector.

“I mean we think that there’s about between uniformed services and the health care workers, it could be close to 20,000. We don’t know the uptake. It could be 25 percent. It could be 50 percent. It could be 60 percent,” he continued, adding that officials expected yesterday’s vaccination exercise to be a “quiet” day.

He said the committee is expecting the numbers to ramp up in the days ahead.

Yesterday’s vaccination exercise at Loyola Hall did not come without any issues, however.

The process got off to a slight late start after a power outage occurred at the facility sometime around 8:25 am. Ten minutes later, the facility’s back-up generator kicked in – allowing for operations there to begin.

Governor General Sir Cornelius A Smith was the first person to receive the first dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine at Loyola Hall yesterday.

Mr Fields assured reporters that the committee has a contingency plan in place for the protection of COVID-19 vaccines at all sites in the event of power outages.

He also addressed concerns about vaccines expiring due to vaccine hesitancy.

“First of all, we’re not taking vaccines…we won’t take them if they are nearing the expiration date. I can tell you that from our chairman’s perspective that anything that’s near (its) expiration date is a no go,” he said.