The effort to vaccinate some of the country’s most vulnerable residents against covid-19 has been slowed by a federal program that sends retail pharmacists into nursing homes accompanied by layers of bureaucracy and logistical snafus.
Local hospital leaders expect the COVID-19 vaccine to help address staffing challenges during the pandemic.
Southern Illinois Healthcare, which operates Memorial Hospital of Carbondale, Herrin Hospital, St. Joseph Memorial Hospital, and clinics throughout southern Illinois, has vaccinated more than 1,200 of its employees since the first batch of Pfizer vaccines arrived last week. It s been stressful here. But last week, when we were able to sign up for the vaccine and heard the shipment had arrived, it really was a joyous moment here. We keep hearing it called a shot of hope, said Tera Lannom, director of nursing excellence at SIH. This shot of hope feels like the beginning of the end of the pandemic. It really is such a huge scientific discovery and a historic moment for us.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, author of “Crime and Punishment”, once wrote, “The degree of civilisation in a society is revealed by entering its prisons.” Updated for the 21st century, our “degree of civilisation” might be revealed by the technology used inside them.
For Microsoft, prisons represent a market. In recent years, the company and its business partners have started providing an array of surveillance and Big Data analytics solutions to prisons, courts and community supervision programmes.
This comes against a backdrop of global protests against police violence along with calls to defund the police and address institutional racism at every level of the criminal justice system.
Southern Illinois Healthcare
Frontline health care workers in southern Illinois will start receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, after doses were delivered to the state s region 5 Wednesday.
Southern Illinois Healthcare held a briefing today, announcing that the healthcare system has received its first vaccine shipment. SIH says it will begin administering the vaccine to employees Thursday.Â
Casey Nelson, an associate medical director with SIH, discussed the vaccine s safety. The other thing that I have also heard a bit about this vaccine is that it can actually possibly give you COVID, and that is not true, Nelson said. What this vaccine can do is it can produce these tiny little pieces of the virus, kind of like debris, that by themselves are useless.
SIHâs Herrin Hospital using antibody testing to help treat some COVID-19 patients
Antibody treatment in use in Southern Illinois Hospital By Colin Baillie | December 14, 2020 at 5:04 PM CST - Updated December 14 at 5:43 PM
HERRIN, Ill. (KFVS) - Southern Illinois Healthcare is using an antibody treatment to help sick COVID-19 patients.
âSo what these new treatments are, basically scientist and Pharmaceutical companies have basically manufactured a man made antibody to the COVID spike protein,â said SIH Herrin Hospital Medical Director Joshua Miksanek said.
He said not everyone is qualified for this treatment, and explained the steps.
âYou need to have a discussion with a physician to talk about the risk/benefits of getting it because itâs been only studied in a small number of people, around 400 or 500 patients, where itâs shown a trend of keeping you out of the hospital or keeping you out of the ER.â