A group of frontline employees will receive UW Medicine’s first administration of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
SEATTLE — A group of frontline workers will receive UW Medicine’s first administration of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday morning.
The workers are nurses, doctors, environmental-services staff, and respiratory-care therapists.
The first shipment of the COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Washington state Monday. UW Medicine received approximately 3,900 doses that will be distributed to Harborview Medical Center, Valley Medical Center, and the Montlake and Northwest campuses.
The state was expected to receive 62,400 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine by Dec. 15, with a total of 222,000 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine by the end of the month.
Around 500,000 people in Washington are eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in its first distribution phase, according to estimates from the state Department of Health (DOH).
The first groups to receive the vaccine will be those most at risk, including frontline health care workers, along with firefighter-paramedics, ambulance drivers, and others who risk coming into direct contact with patients infected with COVID-19.
DOH documents said it could take two months to cover frontline workers, especially considering it’s a two-dose vaccination. It could take several months for the general public to get vaccines.
Experts said in the testing of the vaccine, it was found to be 95% effective.
