January 22, 2021 – K. Graney and A. Bond: COVID Vaccines Update

You are currently viewing January 22, 2021 – K. Graney and A. Bond: COVID Vaccines Update

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Hi everyone, it’s Kevin.  Today is Friday, January 22.

At the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Electric Boat was designated by the government as part of the nation’s “critical infrastructure,” a designation that came with an expectation to maintain consistent, normal operations.

Throughout the pandemic, as you all know, we have taken a lot of steps to try and keep everybody safe while we maintained our operational performance while meeting all the goals that we had over that time period.  And, as I continue to say with some pride, and I hope you feel that pride too, the EB team delivered on all of its commitments, and we’ve had a very successful year in the face of some really unprecedented challenges.

So we remain in contact with public health officials and leaders in both states during this public health crisis.  Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with both governors about our ability to vaccinate our own workforce.  We have the ability to vaccinate all of our employees without putting any additional strain on the public health infrastructure of our surrounding communities, and that’s a fact that I think is very important.  We have acquired additional refrigeration capacity, and have experience in broad vaccination campaigns—and many of you took the opportunity to get a flu vaccine this year.  Our Medical Staff provides flu vaccines to thousands of our employees every year.  We know how to do this—and that was the message I wanted to provide to the governors, to make sure that they knew we were ready and that if they had vaccine available to give to us, that we could do that without impacting the rest of the state infrastructure and limited staff resources. 

So we want to talk a little a bit about what we are doing to stay prepared for the vaccine if and when it becomes available.  Today, I am joined by Andrew Bond, Vice President of Human Resources.  He has under his purview our Medical Team.  Andrew, maybe you can talk about our team’s preps and when we might expect to get access to doses here at EB.

KG:  Can you tell us about the vaccines that are approved to vaccinate against COVID-19?

AB:  Thanks for having me, Kevin. Two vaccines are available by the FDA for Emergency Use.  One is manufactured by Moderna, and the other is manufactured by Pfizer.  Both require two doses to provide protection against COVID-19.

KG:  Let’s talk a little bit about this.  From your perspective, given all we’ve done, are we ready to vaccinate our workforce?

AB:  Absolutely.  We are ready to receive and vaccinate our staff as soon as we are given vaccine.  As you just mentioned, our Medical staff has experience in conducting broad vaccination campaigns, and we have additional storage capacity to allow us to store either the Moderna or the Pfizer vaccine.  As you may have heard, the Pfizer vaccine requires low-temperature storage, and we’ve acquired freezers that will allow us to do that.

That said, vaccines are being rolled out to first responders and vulnerable populations first, that’s known as phase 1A.  Essential manufacturing personnel, like our tradespeople at Electric Boat, are considered part of phase 1B.  These personnel meet the criteria of being part of an essential industry AND do not have the ability to work more than six feet apart.

Phase 1B is large in both states, and while some of our folks qualify according to the criteria I’ve outlined, other populations, such as those that are 75 and older, and those between 16-64 years old with a comorbidity, or condition that puts them at additional risk, such as cardiovascular disease, are being prioritized ahead of our workforce.

It’s really important to point out that each state is doing things a little differently, so it’s difficult to make absolute statements right now.

KG:  So some of the employees that we’ve got here meet those criteria you just mentioned and can get vaccinated sooner. Let’s talk a little bit about how they go about doing that.

AB:  Certainly.  Anyone who is 75 or older or has one of those  co-morbidities, like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer or an immune disorder, for example, should contact their health care provider immediately to see if they are eligible.  And again, each state is handling things differently, so your personal health care provider is really the best source of information on your personal eligibility.

KG:  So, I’m going to ask the question I think is that everybody is curious about.  When can we expect to get access to the vaccine here at EB?

AB:  The short answer is we’re not exactly sure.  But as you said before, we know that leadership in each state is working as quickly as they can to get vaccine deployed.

KG:  And how will we deploy them once we get it?

AB:  The states have asked us to evaluate our staff and prioritize those who can’t easily socially distance.  Naturally, that means our Operations workforce to start.  As I mentioned, at the same time, the states are prioritizing vaccinations in other ways, such as age and comorbidities.  So, our employees meeting these criteria could get vaccinated via public health providers who are focusing on those groups, while we are initially focusing on those who can’t easily socially distance.

As the vaccination campaign continues into later phases, we could receive additional doses that would allow us to broaden into other EB populations.

KG:  Thanks, Andrew.  And hopefully this helps answer what we are doing to get ready. 

Over the next couple of days, your manager will ask you whether or not you would like to get a COVID vaccine if one was offered.  That doesn’t mean we have them.  We are simply trying to take poll to understand our folks’ interest in getting the vaccine.  Our Medical Team can then use that information to determine how many people want access to the vaccine and how we will need to coordinate with the state to make sure we get the right number of vaccines.  The information we are going to gather in terms of who is interested is not intended to do anything other than plan, so I want you to participate in that poll.  And give an honest answer as to whether or not you want to participate.  The thing I don’t want to have us guilty of is saying that we need an unusual number of doses, and we only end up using half of them because some of our people may not be interested in the vaccine.  I think that would end up depriving the community of vaccines that could be put to better use.  And so that’s why we want to be careful and why we are taking the poll.

So I hope everybody can rest a little easier that we are very much interested in getting vaccines in EB people’s arms as soon as possible.

Please continue to keep yourselves, your coworkers and your families safe.   That means wearing a mask, washing your hands and maintaining a safe distance from others when you can, and if you are sick, please don’t come to work.

Thanks for listening.  We’ll talk again and keep you posted.

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