December 15, 2020 at 6:37 am
Hilton Raethel of the Hawaii Healthcare Association says vials of the Pfizer/ BioNTech vaccine should be shipped to the Big Island hospitals early next week, for vaccinations to begin.
Hilo Medical Center and Kona Community Hospital, both part of the state’s Hawaii Health Systems Corporation, have both said their facilities are ready to begin vaccinating those front line health care workers who want to receive the vaccine. Because the vaccine is under Emergency Use Authorization and not fully approved by the FDA, employers will not be requiring their employees to get the vaccine at this time. Pfizer says it will be submitting additional safety data to the FDA and expects to request full approval from the FDA within 6 months.