Calling it “the beginning of the end” of the 2020 pandemic, a University of Michigan hospital infectious disease specialist, who co-chaired the hospital’s vaccine task force, says it will take over six months to complete widespread vaccinations against the virus. Lisa Barry talks with Dr. Sandro Cinti about the vaccine's arrival at Michigan Medicine and how it will be distributed.
Michigan Medicine COVID Vaccine and Therapeutics Task Force co-chair Dr. Sandro Cinti says it will be a slow start to the vaccination processthat will ramp up and get better as they go along.
He says it has not been an easy process establishing exactly how the vaccine will be distributed but says health care personnel with the highest risk exposures will be the first to get the vaccine, which will be done by randomly choosing from those who have indicated they would like to be among the first to get vaccinated.
Dr. Cinti expects it to take at least six months to achieve widespread vaccinations. Dr. Cinti stressed the importance of getting two doses of the vaccine and says, even after that, those who get it will still need to wear a mask until more testing is done on possible asymptomatic spread of the virus.
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— Lisa Barry is the host of All Things Considered on WEMU. You can contact Lisa at 734.487.3363, on Twitter @LisaWEMU, or email her at lbarryma@emich.edu