Sioux Falls health systems: COVID-19 vaccination is efficient, with few adverse reactions

Jan. 4, 2021

Front-line health care workers in Sioux Falls have received their COVID-19 vaccinations, and additional priority groups are starting to receive theirs.

The vaccine progress comes as cases and hospitalizations continue to hold at levels well below their November peak, city and health officials said at an update Monday.

“As South Dakotans, we should be very proud of our state,” said Dr. David Basel, vice president for clinical quality at Avera Medical Group.

“We’ve been very efficient. As soon as that vaccine comes in, we’re getting it given to people.”

The state ranks among the top two or three nationally for both vaccines administered per capita as well as the percentage of vaccines received that have been administered.

“We’re able to cut through the red tape so much more effectively than a lot of states are. We just get it done,” Basel said.

Nursing home residents are being being vaccinated now and that could take three to four weeks.

At the same time, those involved in other clinical activities such as dentists, optometrists and first responders are beginning to be vaccinated.

The general public will begin to have access to the vaccine “within the next few weeks” for those older than 65 and with chronic medical conditions, educators and those who live in congregate living settings, Basel said.

“That’s going to be a big group. That one will probably take awhile. … For a young healthy person to get the vaccine, we’re still probably looking later into the spring sometime, assuming we continue to have a good amount of vaccine available.”

Two more vaccines are expected to come into the market in February or March.

“That will speed things along,” Basel said.

The positive response has been a combination of willing health care workers, a robust electronic medical record that helps with scheduling and tracking, and intentional outreach to those who are able to receive the vaccine, said Dr. Mike Wilde, chief medical officer of Sanford USD Medical Center.

“We’ve had good traction from those who have become eligible for the vaccine to receive it,” he said.

“We can do seven vaccinations every five minutes, so we run people through there pretty quickly … and there’s been good public capture from that.”

Basel and Wilde said there have been minimal issues in those receiving the vaccine. Sanford has administered 15,000 vaccinations throughout its system and had 15 people who required additional evaluation.

“If you look at that compared to what would happen if 15,000 people had COVID, that favors the safety of the vaccine,” Wilde said.

Avera also has seen very good tolerance of the vaccine, Basel said.

We did have one allergic reaction, we monitored, and it ended up being just fine, so things have been going very well with vaccine rollout,” he said.

The city has been experiencing a slowdown in new cases and hospitalizations, which Mayor Paul TenHaken said is a credit to “smart actions by our residents, mask wearing, social distancing … taking it seriously over the holidays. It just feels like there’s some breathing room that’s been put into the community.”

Hospitalizations are less than half of what they were around Thanksgiving, although they have shown an uptick in the past couple days, Basel said.

“We’re watching that closely to see if we are going to see a holiday bounce. We didn’t see that after Thanksgiving, and hopefully we don’t see much of that after Christmas and New Year’s, but we are watching that closely.”

There are no reports that the variant strain first identified in Great Britain has reached South Dakota, “but we’ll continue to watch that,” he said.

“There’s no reason to expect the current vaccine will not cover it.”

Immunity from previous infection should cover the variant strain too, he said.

And just because someone is vaccinated, that person still needs to take precautionary measures, including wear a mask and distancing, because it takes the immune system time to get ready to fight the virus, and it possibly could be transmitted to others if someone were infected in the meantime.

More data is continuing to come in on how contagious individuals might be, but until more is known, restrictions such as visitation guidelines will remain in place, Basel said.

“We have to get enough people vaccinated to get it totally out of our community, so we can open everything back up again.”

Find COVID-19 case numbers, other updates for January here

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Sioux Falls health systems: COVID-19 vaccination is efficient, with few adverse reactions

Front-line health care workers in Sioux Falls have received their COVID-19 vaccinations, and additional priority groups are starting to receive theirs.

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