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Gov. Parson says St. Louis region partners not sharing vaccine as agreed, accuses local health leaders of “spreading fear and panic” (VIDEO)

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Governor Mike Parson began today’s press conference by taking issue with how the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force is characterizing the state’s vaccine distribution.  Dr. Alex Garza, incident commander of the task force. Garza told the St. Louis Post Dispatch, “We don’t believe that we’re being allocated the amount that we need in order to address the needs of our region given its population size.” This spurred other counties to ask the governor for clarification.

Parson responded that the St. Louis region gets 37 percent of the doses allocated to the state through a rapid-distribution partnership with selected hospitals in each region of the state.  However, Parson says that the St. Louis County Health Department has not gotten its share of the doses it was supposed to have gotten from the partnership.

Currently, there are approximately 50,000 first and second doses in the St. Louis area that have not been reported as administered,” Parson said. “There should be no problem with this vaccine being shared with other agencies which was the agreement that was made.”

The task force stands by its count, saying the region get about 20,000 doses.

“We are confident in the way we estimate the number of doses received by Region C, and our goal has always been to ensure fair and equitable distribution of vaccine with all of our partners,” Garza said in a press statement.

In the briefing, Parson also acknowledged that the state is struggling with vaccine supply.

“Every vaccinator in every region is requesting more vaccine than they are currently receiving because quite simply the demands for the vaccine still far outweigh the supply and we are doing everything we can to get the vaccines out as quickly as the supply will allow,” Parson said,

Watch the entire briefing:

Governor Parson says Vizient partnership is expanding Missouri’s hospital capacity

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Missouri’s governor says the state’s partnership with Vizient continues to provide relief for six hospitals across the state.

A Missouri National Guard member briefs Governor Mike Parson at a COVID-19 testing site in mid-Missouri’s Fulton on November 17, 2020 (file photo courtesy of the governor’s Flickr page)

Governor Mike Parson tells Capitol reporters that the hospitals are SSM Health in Jefferson City and St. Louis, St. Louis’ BJC Healthcare, CoxHealth in Springfield, St. Luke’s Hospital in Chesterfield, MOSAIC Life Care in St. Joseph and Hannibal Regional Healthcare System.

“I also will note that those original six have continued to ask for support (additional staff) for that purpose,” Parson says.

During a year-end press conference on Wednesday in Jefferson City, the governor credited the partnership with Vizient for expanding the health care system’s capacity.

“We now have 196 contracted staff, including 33 respiratory therapists, 75 certified nurses aides, and 88 nurses with various specialties,” says Parson.

The governor says an additional 24 health care employees reported to work at assigned hospitals last Monday. The 12-week partnership is continuing into 2021.

Governor Parson also says that more than 66,000 frontline health care workers and nursing home residents and staff have received the initial COVID vaccine. State Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) Director Dr. Randall Williams says 314,000 COVID vaccines were shipped to Missouri in December.

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Pfizer V.P. in Missouri optimistic about new vaccine, says “science is winning”

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Pfizer labs in Chesterfield, Missouri are ready to mass-produce a new COVID-19 vaccine as soon as the FDA approves its success rate and safety data.  Pfizer and BioNtech have teamed up to develop a successful mRNA-based vaccine and have reached a 90 percent success rate in its studies so far.

At a press conference with Missouri Gov. Mike Parson Thursday, Vice President of Biotherapeutics Pharmaceutical Science Christine Smith, the site manager for the Chesterfield facility said there is more work to do. Their industry-leading study continues until they get to 164 confirmed cases of the vaccine’s success. The company must provide safety data for the FDA 60 days after giving a second injection to test subjects.

Pfizer V.P. Christine Smith updates media Nov. 12, 2020

Smith said the safety step is critical for the candidate vaccine.

“We’ve not seen any serious safety concerns, I cannot underscore the importance of knowing more about the safety profile of our candidate. We’ll know more about these results in the coming weeks before we submit the file for emergency use authorization. And we are preparing the necessary manufacturing data to submit to the FDA to demonstrate the safety and quality of the vaccine product produced,” she said.

With approval, she says they can start distributing the vaccine by the end of the year, “because we — Pfizer and BioNtech — have already started to make it.”

Missourians would get the vaccine from the Chesterfield facility, which would reduce travel and handling of shipments that must be stored at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit. Read related story.

Smith thanked the 43-thousand participants who enrolled across the world, including “many Missourians.”

“We are one step closer, science is winning,” she said.

 

 

“Missouri is fully prepared to start vaccinating people in December,” DHSS promises, including transporting long-term care patients

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The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services Director told Missouri legislators that the state is “fully prepared to start vaccinating people in December” if the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19 is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Dr. Randal Williams updated the House Special Committee on Disease Control and Prevention on how a vaccine would arrive and be administered in phase 1 of the plan, which could reach 250,000 of the most vulnerable citizens.

Pfizer is a frontrunner to get Emergency Use Authorization in the novel virus vaccine development and would be distributing the product from its Chesterfield, Missouri facility. That improves the shelf-life of the vaccine, which must be kept chilled at -94F and can only be removed from that temperature four times.  The vaccine will be sent in batches every seven days.

“We’re incredibly thankful it’s in Chesterfield,” Williams told the panel. “I’m very hopeful that we can move through phase one with the Pfizer vaccine alone pretty efficiently.”

Phase one delivers the vaccine to the most vulnerable in the population and those that care for them:

Williams said he is has been speaking with Gen. Gustave Perna, the chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed who is also overseeing the vaccine’s logistics and that he is pleased with the state’s plan.

The department has identified five hospital sites to administer the vaccine but has not yet announced the names as of this posting.

“We’re working with them to see how exactly they would administer to people who are coming in, for instance from long-term care facilities, to receive their vaccination,” Williams said.

Committee Chairman Jonathan Patterson asked, “We’ll have to bus in people from long-term care facilities to get the vaccine?”

“They will have to transport them, we will get them there to get it, yes,” Williams said.

 

Blunt: There are at least four companies with a vaccine — and distribution needs to be funded (AUDIO)

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A COVID-19 vaccine could be approved soon, says Missouri’s senior U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, who has been involved in fast-tracking the process.

“There are about four that are looking good right now and others being developed. Washington University is looking at a vaccine and talking to some partners. It would actually be a nasal spray vaccine similar to the nasal flu shot except in this case putting that vaccine in the part of the body where you’re going to likely absorb the virus,” Blunt told Missourinet.

Blunt says Americans may not have a choice about which vaccine they are offered, but front-line workers and nursing home patients, and the most vulnerable are slated to get it first.

“I’m not sure that every vaccine will be free, it may be true for our state …but everyone who needs a vaccine will get one and people who don’t have coverage will be able to get one for free,” Blunt said.

The vaccines are not actually free as the federal government is buying the vaccines at a low individual rate from the companies it has already partnered with in early research or is contracting with once a drug is approved.

The question now is whether the federal government has the infrastructure and funding it needs to distribute the vaccines.

Blunt, who oversees how HHS gets or allocates vaccine distribution funding, says that $6 billion is “the right number” for national distribution of the drugs and is the figure he’s included in several Senate relief bills so far. He blames Congress for not coming up with the money as vaccine approval nears.

Missourinet asked state health director Randall Williams what it needs to do to pay for distribution across Missouri. He cited federal Health and Human Services Director Alex Azar that it would not cost that much.

Blunt disagrees: “The secretary of Health and Human Services seems to have some sense that there is already enough money out there. That’s not what anybody else has thought. Certainly, if there is no money appropriated to do this, we’re going to find the money and whether that’s money the states already have or money the Department of HHS will have to reposition with the approval of me and other appropriators.”

Blunt says money may be taken away from other federal programs to fund this massive effort.

 

Excerpt of interview with Sen. Blunt and Ashley Byrd

Washington University and St. Louis University have roles in COVID-19 vaccine trials

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Saint Louis University Center for Vaccine Development will be a part of the national effort to find a COVID-19 vaccine.

The two private schools are part of the COVID-19 Prevention Network (CoVPN), a newly organized network formed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to develop and test COVID-19 vaccines and  treatments.

According to Washington University, researchers at both universities will try to enroll about 3,000 participants in several different vaccine trials and “it will be critically important to enroll participants who are likely to be exposed to COVID-19 or those at risk for severe disease from COVID-19, including participants over age 65.”

According to a press release, both schools are well-positioned to conduct this research:

The Saint Louis University Center for Vaccine Development is home to one of 10 Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units in the United States. As such, SLU conducts phases 1 through 4 vaccine and treatment trials, including clinical studies with industry partners.

Washington University School of Medicine has more than 30 years’ experience leading clinical trials evaluating new treatments and vaccines for infectious diseases through its Infectious Disease Clinical Research Unit and the AIDS Clinical Trials Group. The latter has been instrumental in conducting trials to control the HIV pandemic, leading to safe and effective medications that treat and prevent HIV infection and AIDS.

For more information about vaccine trials at Washington University School of Medicine, email [email protected]; call 314-454-0058 or visit the Division of Infectious Diseases clinical trials site.

For more information about vaccine trials at Saint Louis University’s Center for Vaccine Development, vaccine.slu.edu; call 314-977-6333 or 1-866-410-6333; or email [email protected].

White House to announce COVID-19 vaccine developers this week, says Blunt (AUDIO)

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The White House is set to announce progress on developing COVID-19 vaccines this week, according to U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, chairman of a key Senate Health and Human Services budget committee.

He says it will be a handful of candidates — out of a few thousand — to have federal support to develop a sought-after immunization to the virus strain that has to date killed more than 386,000 people worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Blunt says there will be failures in the development of the vaccine, but “if some of them don’t work out, we’re not trying hard enough.’ His “shark tank” approach funds many labs in the race to slow and stop COVID-19.  Pharma companies like Great Britain’s AstraZeneca are pledging to send a vaccine to the U.S. as early as this fall.

Blunt says in the U.S. government’s public-private partnership with drug companies, the outcome must be “available to people at a price they can afford.”

Listen to details in Missourinet’s Ashley Byrd’s interview with Blunt: (3:03)