THE ROAD TO A
COVID-19 Vaccine How the first 1,086 Duke Health employees got vaccinated
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hen Faye Williams arrived for her shift on Monday, December 14, she didn’t expect to become part of history. Williams, who retired after 40 years as a nurse for the Durham VA Health Care System, had been working part-time, screening patients bound for Duke Health appointments for COVID-19 symptoms. On that December day in 2020, a colleague approached Williams with news that Duke Health would be administering its first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. She started to ask Williams if she would be interested in one. “Before she could get it out of her mouth, I said ‘Absolutely, I’ll do it,’” Williams said. COVID-19 had already robbed Williams, 67, of so much. She longed to hug and spend time with nieces and nephews, sorority sisters, and friends from church. For Williams, the arrival of the COVID-19 vaccine represented progress toward reclaiming her old life, as it does for all staff and faculty who now have the opportunity to get vaccinated. When Williams walked into the vaccination site
in the Searle Center later that day, the television cameras and reporters signaled that hers would be no ordinary vaccination. Williams was the first Duke Health caregiver to receive the vaccine at Duke, which immunized 1,086 health system employees during the week of December 14. The vaccine’s journey through Duke, from delivery of the first batch at a hospital loading dock to Williams’ left shoulder, took months of planning, preparation and patience from employees across Duke.
A Freezer Colder Than Antarctica Last fall, when Duke officials began planning for distribution of the vaccine, there were many unknowns, including which vaccine Duke would receive, when it would arrive and how much Duke would get. That required leaders to draw on experience and intuition and anticipate curveballs. Jason Zivica, Duke Health’s director of emergency preparedness and business continuity, stayed ahead of a potential challenge when he learned that Pfizer’s vaccine needed storage at minus-70 degrees Celsius, a temperature colder than winter in Antarctica.
Daryl Blackburn, Duke Regional Hospital Pharmacy’s assistant director, wears protective eyewear and gloves to store the hospital’s first shipment of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in an ultra-cold freezer. Photo by April Dudash.
“We knew ultra-cold freezers would probably be needed, and that they might end up being hard to find, so we started planning that first thing,” Zivica said. Duke already had one ultra-cold freezer at Duke University Hospital, but in October, Zivica helped secure three more – two for Duke Regional Hospital and one for Duke Raleigh Hospital. Slightly larger than a standard home refrigerator, the freezers are capable of holding as many as 50,000 doses. And last fall, as national demand for freezers surged, Duke was a step ahead. “If the vaccine is the light at the end of the tunnel, then we needed to do everything we can to get it out there,” Zivica said.
Building an Appointment System
Nursing Program Manager Rita Oakes administers Duke’s first COVID-19 vaccination to Faye Williams on December 14. Photo by Shawn Rocco.
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WORKING@DUKE
With the vaccine in hand, Duke needed a way for employees to schedule an appointment for their first dose. But before the vaccine appointment website launched, Ramy Sharaf tried to break the system that would serve up to 4,100 Duke Health employees within hours of the site going live.
