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Moderna Vaccine Arrives in Hartford; Nurse Receives First Innoculation

December 21, 2020

Less than a week after Hartford HealthCare’s (HHC) director of infection prevention became the system’s first inoculated against COVID-19 with the Pfizer vaccine, he reported “doing really, really well” as he vaccinated a colleague Dec. 21 with Moderna’s version.

Keith Grant, APRN, said he experienced mild pain at the injection site for a few days, but had expected as much. His story was part of the system’s ceremonious acceptance of the first delivery of the Moderna vaccine. In total, the delivery included 8,800 doses of vaccine, which received emergency use authorization from the Food & Drug Administration late last week.

HHC President and CEO Jeffrey Flaks called them “shots of hope.”

“We have such renewed hope,” Flaks said, adding that the system has already vaccinated more than 1,000 frontline workers across the state through clinics at each of its seven acute care facilities. “By the end of the day, we will have exhausted our Pfizer supply. We expect to vaccinate 10,000 people this week.”

He credited clinical teams with doing tremendous work behind the scenes to set up vaccination sites, which include two at Hartford HealthCare Medical Group sites in Shelton and Wethersfield and an upcoming one opening at the Convention Center next week.

“We are building ourselves up to do this for our communities en masse,” Flaks said. “We are using all our resources to get the vaccine to as many people as quickly and as safely as we can.”

Besides vaccinating HHC colleagues, private practice healthcare providers will be able to be vaccinated at system locations.

The Moderna vaccine – which is as effective as Pfizer’s but does not require the ultra-cold storage and has a refrigerator life of 30 days compared with five – will increase the system’s ability to blanket the state with clinics, according to Eric Arlia, HHC System Director of Pharmacy.

“It’s a lot easier for us to handle and can be put in a lot more settings outside of hospitals,” he said, adding that “the diversification of supply also protects us against any disruption of supply.”

Hartford Hospital nurse Mandy Delgado, the first to receive the Moderna vaccine at HHC, said she hopes more people will be vaccinated so “we can normalize ourselves once again.”

In her 16 years as a nurse, Delgado said she never thought she’d experience anything like the arduous hours spent caring for waves of COVID-19 patients.

“It’s exhausting and overwhelming working in critical care. You see patients progressively getting worse, even dying, and their families not being able to be there. It takes a mental toll on you,” she said. “I wish and hope others will follow me in making the right move to move forward.”

For more vaccine information, click here.