"I think it gives us a lot of hope": Augusta hospitals vaccinate more front-line workers

Minutes after getting the Pfizer vaccine against COVID-19 at University Hospital on Tuesday, registered nurse Norma Elizondo burst into tears. It wasn't a reaction to the shot but her thinking back to earlier this year when she battled the disease for a month, and then her thoughts turned to her mother.

"I'm thinking about my mom back home who battled it, too" for more than two months, said Elizondo, who flew home hours later to Rio Grande, Texas.

The travel nurse, who has worked in University's COVID-19 units for months, was one of hundreds of front-line workers at Augusta hospitals who lined up to get the vaccine after a new wave of shipments this week.

Most of those were from 60,000 doses in Georgia's second allocation of the Pfizer vaccine after receiving 72,000 the previous week, said Nancy Nydam, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Health. About 20,000 of those doses will be set aside for nursing home residents, the other priority group for the first wave of vaccines, she said.

The state is also expecting by Wednesday the first of 174,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine, the second one given emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration, Nydam said. AU Health System and Doctors Hospital of Augusta have each been allocated 900 doses of that vaccine.

University had received a smaller shipment of Pfizer vaccine late Friday and got a larger shipment Tuesday, then moved up its vaccine clinic accordingly. When the clinic opened at 11 a.m. in a room off University's cafeteria, there was already a line of people waiting, said Reyne Gallip, the chief operating officer for acute care services. Like Elizondo, they signed the paperwork, gave consent and got a card telling them when to return for the second dose. 

The change in mood was obvious, said Dr. Ioana Chirca, University's medical director for infectious diseases, infection prevention and microbial stewardship, who also received the vaccine.

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"I think it gives us a lot of hope," she said. "You see it in everyone's eyes. I haven't seen so many happy people in one place in a long time."

Kim Saggus, the employee health supervisor helping to coordinate the clinic, heard it.

"I've never had so many people thank me for giving them a shot," she said.

After squeezing 1,200 shots out of its first Pfizer shipment of 975 doses because of more being in the vials than the listed number of shots, and with 975 more doses Tuesday and 1,000 coming from Moderna, AU Health was able to offer the vaccine to all health system employees, CEO Katrina Keefer said. 

"We want all of it to be gone before Christmas Eve," she said as employees lined up to get the shots in the lobby of Professional Building 1.

Among them was Audrey Lown, a registered nurse in the Adult OR. Wearing a "Merry Grinchmas" scrub cap with a picture of the Grinch, she debated whether to get the vaccine but then ultimately decided to do it.

"I wasn't worried about getting COVID-19, but I don't want to give it to one of my patients unknowingly," Lown said. People in her department seem to have strong feelings for and against, and it was "kind of a quick turnaround" for developing the vaccine, but she did her homework and felt it was "minimal risk," Lown said.

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As dozens of people sat in chairs for the required 15 minutes to see whether they would have side effects from the shot, Lown said she could also sense something was changing with the vaccine.

"I think it symbolizes the beginning of the ending of the pandemic," she said.

That has reached the COVID-19 units as well, said Brittany Schofield, a charge nurse at University.

"It does seem happier," she said, as she sat waiting with Elizondo, who smiled at that.

"It's more joyful," Elizondo said.