In a New Mexico State University Town Hall Tuesday, university officials outlined their role in the state’s vaccine distribution plan.
The university is partnering with the New Mexico Department of Health to help distribute the COVID vaccine in southern New Mexico. An allotment of vaccines will be stored on campus in an ultra-low freezer, capable of holding up to 180,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
NMSU Chief of Police Stephen Lopez says the university will first be tasked with helping to vaccinate health officials, with a special emphasis on those working in rural counties.
“We’ll then take care of additional health care workers, possibly from up to eight counties, is what the State Department of Health has asked us to help out with,” Lopez said. “We do have the facilities here at NMSU, so that they don't have to try to ship a fragile vaccine out to a county in New Mexico that just doesn't have the ability to receive and use it well. So instead, those people can come here, get vaccinated and then get back to work.”
Lopez says the university is currently preparing to receive its first doses this month. The entire state of New Mexico is expected to receive over 17,000 doses from Pfizer in the first round of distribution.
“The equipment is already in place to carry out the vaccine effort,” Lopez said. “We have tested various components of the plans to make sure they are working well, and that’s a good thing because we're now just about a week away from when we might see the first vaccines start rolling into our area, though again, in very small numbers. We're continuing to engage in regular coordination and are now training staff specific to their expected vaccines, whether that's the Pfizer vaccine, whether that’s the Moderna vaccine, because they do have some differences in how we handle them, and in how to actually deliver them.”
During phase one, healthcare workers and the elderly will be among the first to get vaccinated, followed by other essential workers in phase two. The second phase is projected to begin by late February, depending on the availability of the vaccine.
Dr. Kathryn Hanley, a professor of biology at NMSU, spoke about what people should expect from the vaccination process.
“The way that the vaccine is administered is that there's an initial dose, you wait three weeks, you get a second dose, you wait one to two weeks, and then you should have full protection,” Hanley said. “And the data just rolled out…from the FDA, where we learned that after the initial dose, there's about an 82% efficacy, though there's some error around that estimate, but after the full treatment, so the full two doses, protection goes up to about 95% effectiveness.”
She also projected that immunity to the virus will last for approximately 12 months before people will need to get the vaccine again.
“We don't know how long immunity from the vaccine is going to last because the trials have only been running for about two months,” Hanley said. “And frankly, we don't know how long immunity to the natural infection is going to last because this pandemic hasn't had its first birthday yet. But all the signals are that immunity will last for about a year and then it will start to wane. And we do see people becoming infected for a second time, so that even people who have been authentically infected with SARS-CoV-2 will still probably want to be vaccinated to avert that second infection.”
NMSU Chief of Police Stephen Lopez says it is possible to get through all phases of their distribution plan before people need to be revaccinated.
“It is absolutely within the realm of possibility to get everybody vaccinated from an actual effort standpoint. The bigger question is going to be are people willing to come out here and get vaccinated?” Lopez said. “I'm comfortable getting it right now. Hopefully, we'll be able to give the information to people that get even more people in our community ready as well.”
