The head of Baystate Health said he expects to receive the first shipment of the coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday and start vaccinating employees on Wednesday.
Mark Keroack, CEO of the hospital system based in Springfield, Massachusetts, said health care workers dealing with COVID-19 patients will be the first to be vaccinated.
Keroack said there won’t be enough doses in the initial delivery to take care of all such workers.
"But we’re told that there will be weekly shipments so we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to catch up quickly and have everyone vaccinated by January," he said.
After that, first responders, health care workers not working directly with COVID-19 patients, and people in nursing homes and jails would be eligible for the vaccine.
Some hospital workers in Hartford received a dose of the vaccine Monday.
Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccines arrived at Hartford Hospital shortly after 9 a.m. today. Front-line health workers across @HartfordHealthC will be among the first to get them. Press conference starting soon. pic.twitter.com/vIx093lDlO
— Nicole Leonard (@ACPressNLeonard) December 14, 2020
The vaccine from Pfizer, approved Friday by the Food and Drug Administration, requires two shots.
Keroack said Baystate has been getting deluged with calls from people trying to find out when they can get the vaccine.
Keroack said healthy members of the general public are not likely to start getting the shots until April, but that the timeline could be accelerated depending on many vaccines get approved.
This report includes information from Connecticut Public's Nicole Leonard.
