Category: For Staff Page 10 of 15

Dear Faculty, Staff and Students,

Today, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) announced changes to the criteria for priority distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine to include individuals 65 years of age or older in Group 2. In addition, DHHS announced a modification to Group 1 to include all healthcare workers who work in a healthcare setting.

Faculty and staff who meet this new criteria will receive an email from Duke Employee Occupational Health inviting them to schedule an appointment for vaccination at one of the three employee vaccination clinics located at our three hospitals.  Eligible staff will be able to select the location most convenient for them. Only employees are eligible to be vaccinated at our employee clinics. We are not able to vaccinate employee dependents or others at these sites.

The expansion of the Group 2 criteria to include those 65 years of age and older applies to Duke Health patients and the general public, as well. We will continue our current approach to scheduling vaccination appointments through MyChart for this target population.   

At this time, those who do not meet the updated criteria, including those younger than 65 years of age who are living, working or studying on campus, are not yet eligible to be vaccinated.

We continue to receive a multitude of messages and questions about when individuals can be vaccinated. The criteria for vaccination are dictated by the state and are dynamic. We will notify you directly to schedule an appointment once you are eligible for vaccination. In the meanwhile, please monitor the Duke COVID Vaccine website to review the details for the priority distribution plan and answers to frequently asked questions.

Sincerely,

Kyle Cavanaugh
Vice President, Administration

Carol Epling, MD, MSPH
Director, Employee Occupational Health and Wellness

Gail Shulby, RN, MA, CPPS
Chief of Staff to the Executive Vice President, Duke Health

Cameron R. Wolfe, MBBS (Hons), MPH, FIDSA
Associate Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases, Duke Health

Co-Leaders of the Duke COVID Vaccination Work Group

Dear Faculty, Staff and Students,

While there is much excitement about the COVID-19 vaccine and the potential to bring an end to this pandemic, we ask for your continued patience as the distribution process will take many months. In the meantime, please continue to mask, socially distance, monitor your symptoms, and use good hand hygiene.

The State of North Carolina has established updated priorities for vaccination based on the CDC guidelines. As part of the initial roll out, more than 20,000 members of the Duke community are included in Phase 1a, including Duke health care workers, university COVID research teams, and other staff members whose roles present a high risk for exposure to COVID-19, such as police officers working in the emergency department. To date, more than 12,000 doses of vaccine have been administered. We are in the process of scheduling appointments for the remainder of this phase, as well as for the second doses of the Pfizer vaccine that must be administered approximately 21 days after the initial dose.

The state has authorized vaccination providers to begin vaccinating the first group of the Phase 1b population, which is limited to those who are 75 years of age or older. This process is underway, and Duke faculty and staff who are 75 years of age or older have been invited to schedule an appointment for vaccination. Duke Health has more than 100,000 patients who meet this criterion as well as many others in the broader community, so it will take time and additional vaccine supply to complete vaccination of this group. Duke Health is not yet scheduling appointments for other groups in Phase 1b, including Group 2 (Health care and frontline workers essential to the COVID response who are 50 years of age or older) and Group 3 (Frontline workers of any age and health care workers of any age, regardless of whether they work directly with COVID-19 patients) as the state has yet to indicate when progression to these groups will be authorized.

Individuals who are not designated in the initial phases – including students, faculty and staff without high risk for exposure or increased risk for severe illness – will likely be eligible to receive vaccinations later in the spring or early summer. For that reason, we urge everyone, including those who have been vaccinated, to continue to wear masks, keep at least 6-feet of distance, wash hands regularly, and avoid gatherings with people who do not live with you.

North Carolina and the nation are seeing the highest levels of COVID infection and hospitalizations since the pandemic first began. While the vaccine offers hope for an end to this pandemic, the speed at which it happens will be directly related to our collective ability to adhere to public safety guidelines that limit the spread of the virus.

Thank you for what you have done and continue to do during this extraordinary time to keep yourself and other members of our community safe. You can find more information about the vaccine, including resources and answers to common questions, please visit the Duke COVID-19 Vaccine website.

Sincerely,

Kyle Cavanaugh
Vice President, Administration

Carol Epling, MD, MSPHz
Director, Employee Occupational Health and Wellness

Gail Shulby, RN, MA, CPPS
Chief of Staff to the Executive Vice President, Duke Health

Cameron R. Wolfe, MBBS (Hons), MPH, FIDSA
Associate Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases,

Duke HealthCo-Leaders of the Duke COVID Vaccination Work Group

This message was sent to all students and University faculty and staff.

The arrival of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccination has created a new sense of hope in the midst of a deeply concerning surge of the virus in North Carolina and across the country. The distribution process, however, will take many months and is determined by the state government. While health care workers will continue to receive priority, we expect that most members of the University community will not be eligible to receive the vaccine until spring 2021 or later.

The initial recipients of the vaccine at Duke will be approximately 4,000 healthcare workers in Phase 1a who are at risk of prolonged exposure to COVID-19 patients and researchers who are working in labs that handle the COVID-19 virus. Last week, 1,100 of those individuals received the vaccine at Duke. That process is expected to continue through early January and will then expand to include healthcare workers at risk of exposure to COVID due to their assigned duties in hospitals and clinics. More than 8,000 of these appointments have already been scheduled. 

The State of North Carolina will determine the completion of the initial phase and authorize expanded access to the vaccine. Duke experts are working closely with the state on this process and are preparing the necessary protocols to expand vaccination to other groups once approved. All recipients of the vaccine are required to register through the state’s vaccine management system before an appointment can be scheduled with a healthcare provider for vaccination. This helps ensure individuals meet the eligibility criteria and allows for equitable and efficient distribution.

Because we know the distribution of the vaccine across our community will take time, we urge you to take every precaution to keep yourself and others safe, especially during the holiday season. This includes wearing a mask, maintaining 6 feet of distance, and avoiding gatherings with others who do not live in your home. Please stay vigilant and continue to protect yourself, your family and the Duke community.

More information about vaccine distribution for the Duke community, including answers to frequently asked questions, can be found on the Duke COVID-19 Vaccine website. Thank you for your ongoing support and patience as we enter this hopeful new stage.

Sincerely,

Kyle Cavanaugh
Vice President, Administration

Carol Epling, MD, MSPH
Director, Employee Occupational Health and Wellness

Gail Shulby, RN, MA, CPPS
Chief of Staff to the Executive Vice President, Duke Health

Cameron R. Wolfe, MBBS (Hons), MPH, FIDSA
Associate Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases, Duke Health

Co-Leaders of the Duke COVID Vaccination Work Group

Duke has launched a new website with information and FAQ about the COVID vaccine for faculty, staff, and students. Covidvaccine.Duke.edu will have the most up to date information about distribution of the vaccine to members of the Duke community.

This email was sent to all Duke students, faculty, and staff

Dear Duke Colleagues,

This holiday season, we are grateful for the many ways that our community has come together to support one another and look toward an even brighter future.

We are grateful to our health care providers and frontline workers for keeping us safe and allowing us to continue our missions of teaching, learning, and discovery. We are grateful for the remarkable launch of the COVID-19 vaccine this week and proud of Duke’s role in it. We are grateful to all of our students, faculty, staff, and neighbors who worked tirelessly and selflessly over the last year to make our fall semester a success.

The holidays also offer a moment for quiet reflection—and resolve. We are now in the midst of a deeply concerning surge of COVID-19 across the country and around the world. Now more than ever, we must continue to observe public health guidelines to protect our health and safety, and that of our families, friends, and fellow Blue Devils. Even in this holiday season, that means wearing a mask, practicing social distancing, avoiding social gatherings, and washing our hands.

In the new year, we look forward to welcoming our students back to campus for the spring semester. Undergraduate, graduate, and professional students will soon receive specific details with regards to academic programs, living arrangements, food service, access to campus facilities, health and safety protocols, testing, and limitations on gatherings. And while we expect that the spring semester will look much like the fall, it is important to remember that all our plans are dynamic and subject to change on short notice depending on current conditions and the guidance from Duke medical experts, public health officials, and state and local government directives.

I thank you for all you’ve done to lift our community in this most unusual and challenging of years and wish you all safe and peaceful holidays and brighter days in the New Year. Warmest wishes from everyone at Duke.

Sincerely,

Vincent E. Price
President