ESCANABA — Following the recent approval of a vaccine to protect against COVID-19, health officials across the nation are gearing up for what is slated to be the largest vaccination campaign in U.S. history. The Upper Peninsula is no exception.

Immunizations for healthcare workers are already underway in Michigan. Frontline healthcare workers at Spectrum Health Butterworth in Grand Rapids and Michigan Medical in Ann Arbor were the first in the state to get the vaccine when immunizations kicked off Monday, and Public Health Delta & Menominee Counties said the Pfizer vaccine arrived in Delta County Thursday.

According to Jenni Miller, immunization and communicable disease coordinator for PHDM, the state has requested health departments not disclose which healthcare facilities are registered with the state as COVID Vaccination Program Enrolled Providers due to safety and security concerns. However, the state has announced there are three enrolled providers in Delta County and two more in Menominee County. Neighboring Schoolcraft County, which is not part of the PHDM district, also has two enrolled providers.

“I can’t see anything like that happening in the U.P., but (it is) in case anyone was trying to intercept doses before they arrive at their location or something like that,” said Miller.

Individual health care providers who are part of the program are allowed to be more open about their status. Dickinson County Healthcare recently announced it was enrolled in the program, and OSF St. Francis Hospital confirmed with the Daily Press Wednesday that it too was an enrolled provider, equipped with the ultra-cold freezer needed to store the Pfizer vaccine.

“We are enrolled in that and we will be distributing that vaccine. We will be administering that. Of course, we will be doing it (by) the criteria and the prioritization that was set by the state and which was falling in line with the CDC guidelines,” said Kelly Jefferson, vice president of operations for OSF St. Francis Hospital and Medical Group in Escanaba, who has been active in the logistics of implementing vaccinations at the hospital.

The vaccine will be distributed in Michigan in two phases, that are in compliance with guidelines

from the CDC and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). The first phase is broken down into a series of sub-phases.

In the first part of the first phase, “Phase 1A,” paid and unpaid individuals who serve in health care settings or who have direct or indirect exposure to patients or infectious material that can’t work from home will be vaccinated. Residents of long-term care facilities — who have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic — will also be vaccinated at this part of phase one.

“Because vaccine quantities will be limited at first, we can expect some sub-priority groups within the priority groups. For example, in Phase 1A, emergency medical service providers and hospital floor staff would be vaccinated before healthcare workers in an outpatient clinic,” said Miller.

In a press release issued by PHDM Thursday, after the Daily Press had spoken with Miller, it was announced that the federal government had entered into a contract with CVS and Walgreens pharmacies to provide the vaccine to skilled nursing facilities, assisted living facilities, adult foster care homes, residential living facilities, and other group homes. The pharmacies will contact those facilities directly to facilitate vaccination of their staff and residents.

The second part of phase one, “Phase 1B,” will be the vaccination of workers in “essential critical industries.” The state has indicated this includes workers with unique skill sets, like non-hospital or non-public health laboratories or those who provide mortuary services.

However, laboratory and mortuary service providers aren’t the only people that may qualify at this stage. Both the state and ACIP have referenced guidance issued by the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, also known as “CISA,” which has been the architect of what industries and jobs are seen as “essential” for most of the pandemic.

“Many of these workers operate in roles that require significant person-to-person interactions, and current data show that many of these workers are at increased risk for getting COVID-19. Early vaccine access is critical not only to protect them but also to maintain the essential services they provide U.S. communities,” said the state’s Dec. 13 version of its vaccine prioritization guidance.

CISA’s guidance identifies a wide variety of occupations and rolls across industries that make up the “Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce,” but stops short of claiming to be a definitive list or a federal directive or standard. The industries and professions that are named in the most recent guidance overlap with many of the occupations that were exempted from the Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders in the spring, as the exemptions were also based on the CISA’s guidance at that time.

In Phase 1C, the next group to be vaccinated will be people at high risk for severe COVID-19 illness. This includes people with underlying medical conditions and those age 65 or older.

After the completion of Phase 1C, Phase 2 begins, which is a mass vaccination campaign for individuals age 16 or older.

“We’ll be following the prioritization with (vaccine administration), so it will be quite some time before we’re administering to the general public, but we will want to be doing that as soon as we can, for sure,” said Jefferson.

The Pfizer vaccine is unique, not only because it requires extremely cold temperatures to store, but also because it’s the first vaccine of its kind to be released in the United States.

“There are currently no other mRNA vaccines licensed in the United States, but they have been studied for more than a decade and have the advantage of a shorter manufacturing time,” said Miller. “Other vaccines use pharmaceutical processes to produce the viral proteins in a vaccine, while mRNA enlists your body’s cells to create the protein itself in order to create an immune response. mRNA in the vaccine never enters the nucleus of the cells and does not affect or interact with a person’s DNA. Like all vaccines, COVID-19 mRNA vaccines have been rigorously tested for safety before being authorized in the United States.”

It’s not uncommon for vaccines of all types to produce side effects, and the Pfizer vaccine is no exception.

“The side effects are more common than with other vaccines and include, fever, fatigue, headache, chills, and body/joint aches. The side effects are described as mild to moderate. The vaccines do not contain live virus and do not cause you to develop COVID-19 infection. The side effects are an individual’s body showing an immune response to the vaccine, which is proof that the vaccine is working,” said Miller.

A second vaccine produced by Moderna, which is anticipated to get FDA approval this week, does not require the same extreme temperatures as its Pfizer counterpart. That vaccine could also hit the U.P. before the first of the year.

“We are expecting to see Moderna vaccine in the U.P. before the end of the month. There will be Pfizer and Modern vaccine given simultaneously in the community. Providers without ultra cold freezers can store and administer this vaccine while providers that can store Pfizer will most likely continue to administer it,” said Miller.

Miller noted that regardless of which vaccine someone gets, both COVID-19 vaccines are administered in two doses. Both doses must be from the same brand to be effective.

It is not known if OSF will be a provider of the Moderna vaccine or any vaccines outside of the one created by Pfizer. Jefferson was not even sure it would be an option for the hospital.

“I don’t know that it is (up to OSF), and it will really depend on availability because, like I’ve told our staff here, we’re competing with the world for these products — not even the country, it’s the world,” she said.