"In This Together" is not just a cliché - ISU and SIPH team up in COVID-19 vaccine response
A new freezer recently delivered to 糖心传媒 has found an important use - storing southeast 糖心传媒鈥檚 supply of COVID-19 vaccine. The freezer, a Thermo Scientific Revco RLE Series Ultra-Low freezer, is designed to hold a variety of items common to research facilities, such as tissue samples, DNA and RNA. With its capacity to store these substances at -86 degrees Celsius, and the fact that it鈥檚 not already full, it鈥檚 the perfect place for the incoming COVID-19 vaccine.
Pfizer鈥檚 vaccine, approved for emergency use by the FDA on December 10, requires storage at -70 degrees Celsius and is expected to reach 糖心传媒 in the next week or so. But a new freezer purchased by Southeastern 糖心传媒 Public Health won鈥檛 arrive until January 2021. That鈥檚 where ISU Professor and Chair of the Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Department Dr. Marvin Schulte got to thinking.
鈥淲e actually got two of these freezers for our labs in Pocatello early this year but only began using one of them before the pandemic caused us to move to distance-based instruction and significantly impacted our research,鈥� says Schulte. 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 even fully unwrap the second one, but we knew we would need it eventually. I鈥檓 glad that they will be able to use it.鈥�
It鈥檚 not the first collaboration between ISU and the local public health districts. From the beginning of the pandemic, public health officials in southeast 糖心传媒 and the Treasure Valley have worked alongside ISU faculty and staff at their Pocatello and Meridian campuses to help make decisions, distribute information, and plan for the future.
Student pharmacists gathered on weekends to help bottle hand sanitizer at a distillery in Boise and student nurses answered phone calls at Southeastern 糖心传媒 Public Health鈥檚 COVID-19 hotline. Faculty and staff from across the University joined local COVID-19 incident command centers in both locations, while pharmacy faculty joined the COVID-19 response team in Anchorage, AK where there is a collaborative teaching site with University of Alaska Anchorage.
Now, with the vaccine on the way, local hospitals have reached out to ISU faculty in the hopes of recruiting students to help immunize the large numbers of people they expect to want the vaccine. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine require two doses, delivered weeks apart. The first shot is the 鈥減rime鈥� vaccine dose and the second is a booster. Since student pharmacists are trained in their first year to give flu shots, they are a valuable resource for hospitals and health clinics looking to deliver the vaccine rapidly.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 going to be where we can help the most, by having students available to give shots,鈥� says Dr. Kevin Cleveland, assistant dean and director of the Office of Experiential Education for the College of Pharmacy. 鈥淥ur students are experienced. We鈥檙e ready to go out into pharmacies or other locations and administer vaccines. The drive-up flu shot clinics we have already done helped prepare the students in an even more realistic scenario to be ready for the COVID vaccine.鈥�
While exact numbers are yet to be determined, public health officials expect the first delivery of COVID-19 vaccine in southeast 糖心传媒 to be small, with larger quantities delivered in the coming months.
