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Covid vaccine update- February 1, 2021

COVID Vaccine Update February 1, 2021

If you receive the COVID vaccine elsewhere, please send us a note or message us on the Patient Portal, stating which vaccine you received, the date you received it and the location where you received it. Please do not call us with this information- our phones have been overwhelmed with COVID questions, especially related to the vaccine.

At this time, we are not able to schedule the vaccine for you or provide an authorization code for you to get the vaccine at Main Line Health. Please do not call us to try to have us somehow get you the vaccine. At present, we do not have the power to do this. The constant phone calls are clogging up our phones lines and keeping the office from providing necessary care.

The clearest source of the vaccine at this point is the Main Line Health System. The system has a limited number of vaccines and so, at present, is offering the vaccine to patients 75 and over who have had some contact (visit, lab work, Xray, ER or Urgent Care visit) with Main Line Health in the last year. If so, you will receive an invitation through the MyChart by email or on your phone, if you have the app. Make sure you have installed MyChart and that you log onto it to see if there is a message for you. For instructions on how to set up an account in MyChart, go to https://blog.mainlinehealth.org/mlh-clinician/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2021/01/MyChart-Sign-Up-Instructions.pdf

If/when enough vaccine is available, Main Line Health will then invite people 65-74 and those 16-64 with high-risk conditions who have My Chart accounts to get the vaccine. High risk conditions include conditions like active cancer, COPD, chronic kidney disease, heart disease, heart failure, obesity (BMI>30), pregnancy, diabetes, Down Syndrome, sickle cell disease, smokers, and immunocompromised patients. Some examples of immunocompromised conditions are active cancer, bone marrow transplant, solid organ transplant, stem cells for cancer treatment, genetic immune deficiencies, HIV, and use of medicines such as corticosteroids, mycophenolate, sirolimus, cyclosporine, tacrolimus, etanercept,  rituximab and other immunosuppressants.

We expect the Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine to be approved in the next 2 weeks. It appears to be extremely effective at preventing severe COVID- no one who got the vaccine required hospitalization. It also appears effective against the B117 variant from England. Because it is an easier vaccine logistically, we hope that the State will give us the vaccine to distribute to our patients. If so, we will hold a mass immunization clinic in the parking lot on a Saturday and/or Sunday so that we can immunize as many people as quickly as possible as long as the vaccine holds out. We will try to make sure we cover our 80 and older population first- 148 patients- if they have not already received a vaccine. We have 129 patients between 75-80 and 448 between 65 and 75. We will try to include younger patients with high risk conditions in 65-75 yo group.

AGAIN, PLEASE DO NOT CALL US TO TRY TO SOMEHOW GET PRIORITY. PLEASE DO NOT ARGUE WITH US ABOUT YOUR RISK FACTORS. PLEASE JUST HUNKER DOWN AND CONTINUE TO BE CAREFUL MORE VACCINE IS ON THE WAY AND WE WILL DO OUR BEST TO GET IT TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS WE POSSIBLY CAN AS QUICKLY AS WE CAN, WHEN WE GET IT.

Author
Margaret S Lytton Physician

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