Dr. Gary Anthone discusses the current treatments for coronavirus.

LINCOLN — Nebraska health care workers could start getting vaccinated for COVID-19 in less than two weeks, state officials said Wednesday.

Barring any glitches, all of the roughly 90,000 front-line health care workers could get their first round of shots by the end of the month. That includes staff in hospitals, long-term-care facilities, home health, primary care clinics and emergency medical services.

Speaking at a press briefing, Gov. Pete Ricketts and Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services officials added some definition to the vaccination effort ahead as the country awaits federal approval of the country’s first COVID vaccines.

Emergency approval of a vaccine made by Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech could come as soon as Dec. 10. A second vaccine, developed by Moderna, could follow within a week. The timeline depends on how quickly the federal Food and Drug Administration acts after a panel of independent advisers reviews data about the vaccines.

If approval comes late next week, Angie Ling, incident commander for the HHS public health division, said that Nebraska could receive an initial allotment of 15,600 doses of the Pfizer vaccine the week of Dec. 13 and that health care workers could start getting them within hours.

“It is vitally important that those on the front lines of the fight against the pandemic stay as healthy as possible and that we reduce their chances of spreading the virus,” she said.

The vaccines are being distributed to states based on their share of the nation’s adult population. Ling said the state expects to get 19,500 doses of Pfizer vaccine and 32,100 of the Moderna vaccine the week of Dec. 20, with an additional 23,400 doses of Pfizer vaccine and 14,200 doses from Moderna coming the last week of December.

That’s 104,800 doses potentially headed for Nebraska yet this year, enough for those in the top priority group under the state’s distribution plan, Ricketts said. That group, labeled Phase 1a, includes only health care workers.

Phase 1b will focus on people who are more vulnerable to the coronavirus, such as nursing home residents, people age 65 and older, and people with certain medical conditions. It also will include essential workers, such as teachers and school staff, correctional workers and food processing workers.

The governor declined to estimate when the state would be able to start giving vaccinations to the 1b group. He said the general population might have to wait until April for a vaccination.

Ricketts said he expects that he will have to wait for a vaccine, as a member of the general population. But he said he would have no hesitation getting a vaccination, once it has won FDA approval. Some studies have suggested that large numbers of people are skeptical about the COVID vaccine.

“It’s important to know that help is on the way, hope is out there,” Ricketts said.

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The governor also noted that people must get two shots within about a month of each other for full benefit. The federal government plans to distribute second doses in January for the Nebraskans who get their first shot in December.

Dr. Gary Anthone, the state’s chief medical officer, said the FDA is still analyzing data to determine how soon a person would be considered immune to the coronavirus after getting the second vaccine dose. It is too early to know how long the immunity could last.

An initial version of the state vaccine distribution plan was released in late October. A revised version with more detail about who, where, when and how of distribution is due to the federal government Friday. Ricketts said emergency medical services personnel were not part of the 1a group in the initial plan but were shifted into that group after more consultation.

One key consideration with the Pfizer vaccine is that it must be kept at ultra-low temperatures, 94 degrees below zero, until shortly before it is used. An HHS map shows that most of the ultracold freezers in Nebraska are in the eastern third of the state. Ricketts said that means the Moderna vaccine may be better suited for use at hospitals and clinics farther west. That vaccine needs to be kept at only a few degrees below zero.

A separate HHS map identifies health care facilities that will be doing vaccinations. The list includes hospitals, local public health departments, federally qualified health centers and Indian Health Services clinics across the state. There is at least one vaccine provider in each public health region.

Nebraska saw drop in COVID-19 cases last week; will Thanksgiving get-togethers reverse that?

Also on Wednesday:

Contact tracing. Ricketts said the state has nearly erased the backlog of contact-tracing cases. He said that people who test positive are being contacted within a day now and that contact tracers have started reaching out again to people who had close contact with positive cases.

The backlog built up when HHS did not bring on more tracers as the number of cases started soaring. To help catch up, the state stopped having tracers call close contacts.

Relief funds. The governor said he would consider using state funds to help people hurt by the economic effects of the pandemic if no new federal relief legislation is passed. In the meantime, he said he is talking with members of the state’s congressional delegation. Congressional leaders have not been able to reach agreement on additional relief proposals so far.

Our best staff images from November 2020

martha.stoddard@owh.com, 402-473-9583

twitter.com/stoddardOWH

Originally published on omaha.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.

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