Vaccinations: Now Is the Time to Come to the Aid of Your Public Health

Emergency managers everywhere should be contacting their public health partners to find out what the level of preparation is for administering vaccinations within your jurisdiction. Some might advocate "sitting back" and waiting for public health authorities to contact them when they need help.

Personally, I believe in being proactive. Given the task of trying to vaccinate every person in the United States willing to take the vaccine, it will be daunting. Just as many emergency management agencies got involved with the personal protective equipment (PPE) logistics this past spring, there will be other opportunities to assist.

Think about what will be required to conduct vaccinations:

• Vaccines
• Vaccine storage
• Vaccine transportation
• Scheduling
• Syringes
• Alcohol wipes
• Staff/Shift work
• Training of staff
• PPE
• Staging areas 
• Security
• Actual vaccination sites
• Waiting areas (people vaccinated must wait for 15 minutes before leaving site)
• Feeding areas for staff
• Break areas
• Sanitation
• Emergency Medical Transport in case of an adverse reaction
• Seven-day-a-week effort

I'm sure to be missing some very basic needs, but as you can see the list and teams needed for months of a vaccination effort can be daunting. Figuring out how you can help now will be better than waiting for the people and the effort to collapse from exhaustion. 

Another thing to consider is that vaccines will start rolling out just when the Thanksgiving wave of sick people will be arriving at the hospital needing treatment. If you are going to surge vaccinations, the normal supply of people to do this work will not be present.

The special cooling needed for the Pfizer vaccine will make things more difficult, as is the need to have people come back in three weeks for another booster shot of the vaccine. 

Your planning, organizational and logistics skills will be needed — I'm positive of it!