HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. — A panel of 21 convened FDA experts voted to simplify the process of COVID-19 vaccination.
What You Need To Know
An FDA panel voted to approve simplifying the COVID-19 vaccine process
The CDC will now vote on simplifying the regimen
Dr. Tiffany Barber owns the Hillsborough Pharmacy
Pharmacist said the public would take interest in a simplified process
The discussion comes as the country moves into the fourth year of the pandemic.
After more than nine hours of virtual meetings, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee decided most adults, adolescents, older children and younger children who were previously immunized should receive one vaccination that most closely matches the circulating strain in the public.
Dr. Art Reingold, one of the experts on the panel, said after the vote how the science and scheduling of the COVID-19 vaccine is explained to the public has room for improvement.
“I think the public health messaging really does need to be much better than it has been in the past. What we are about is preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death. That’s really what we should be talking about with these vaccines,” Reingold said.
The explanation by public health leaders to the nation at large left many people wondering when, where, how and why they needed shots against the novel coronavirus.
The constant shifting on the best ways to inoculate people of different ages and internal health baffled even medical professionals who dealt mostly with the general population.
A pharmacist in Hillsborough has been waiting for this day to come.
“We do a lot of explaining here,” Dr. Tiffany Barber said.
Barber has been the owner of Hillsborough Pharmacy and the IndyCare clinic since 2011.
Barber talked about the difficulty of tracking each new decision by governing regulatory bodies before the vote was taken.
”It’s hard. It’s hard because it changes. It also changes every couple of months,” Barber said.
Despite this headache, being the face of an independent pharmacy makes Barber happy.
“I always enjoyed medicine and how it works and learning about it, and I'm still taking care of patients so I decided to go to pharmacy school. I got in, went and I decided to open this pharmacy,” Barber said.
There’s a reason why Barber left the world of retail chains behind nearly 15 years ago.
“Being able to practice pharmacy the way I always wanted to practice pharmacy and being able to care about patients and not worry about metrics,” she said.
What the owner did not love is constantly keeping up with the ever-changing guidelines on COVID-19 vaccinations.
“It’s hard because then you have to maintain all that information in your head,” she said.
Different vaccine makers have different storage and packaging requirements. Moderna’s vials have a shape different from Pfizer’s. She held up a box of Moderna shots to prove another point about knowing how long they lasted.
“It takes multiple, multiple people because as you can see, we don’t know what the expiration date is,” she said.
On the back of the box appeared to be only the sign of the manufacturing date.
On the other hand, Pfizer must be kept in sub-zero temperatures at all times.
“Keeping that all going, it’s a lot,” she said.
There are also different dosages based on age.
"There’s ones for 12-plus, there’s ones for 5-11, there’s ones for under 5,” Barber said.
Her hope was answered by the FDA.
“Single dose, which is what we are all hoping for, because it would be a lot less waste,” she said.
It is true many vials have been tossed away from spoiling.
Changing the vaccine protocol from a two-dose series followed by a booster to a single shot could ramp up immunity nationwide.
“Just understanding that this is something people struggle with. Medical terminology, medical literacy and making sure you are making it as simple as possible on them," she said.
And like any good community partner, she wants people to feel they can walk into her drugstore and get what they need.
“You might as well go somewhere that treats you right. We treat you like family here. You are more than just a number,” Barber said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must now vote to approve the simplification of the vaccine process as well. She said another approval from the CDC benefits those on both sides of the counter.