Pence lauds vaccine effort during stop at Indiana plant

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that he's looking forward to getting vaccinated for COVID-19 and that he expects to receive his first dose in the next few days.

During a visit to a Catalent Biologics plant in Bloomington that's producing a vaccine developed by Moderna and the National Institutes of Health, Pence projected confidence in the nascent vaccination effort, including in the Moderna vaccine that moved to the cusp of government authorization on Tuesday.

'œWe have come to the beginning of the end of the coronavirus pandemic,'ť Pence said, a day after six workers at Fort Wayne's Parkview Health hospital became the first people in Indiana to receive doses of another COVID-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer-BioNTech.

Pence also stressed the need for Americans to stay focused on limiting the spread of the virus before a vaccine is in widespread use. Cases and hospitalizations are continuing to rise in many parts of the country, with the U.S. COVID-19 death toll topping 300,000 on Monday.

'œIt's been a marathon this year. It's been a marathon of heartbreak for many American families,'ť Pence said.

By week's end, more than 50 Indiana hospitals and clinics were expected to receive a total of 55,575 Pfizer vaccine doses as part of the largest vaccination campaign in U.S. history.

Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that its preliminary analysis confirmed the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine developed by Moderna. A panel of outside experts is expected to recommend the formula on Thursday, with the FDA's green light coming soon thereafter.

The state Department of Health on Tuesday added another 129 COVID-19 deaths to the state's death toll, pushing the overall figure of confirmed or presumed coronavirus deaths to 6,968 since the start of the pandemic. The agency also reported another 4,347 confirmed cases of the disease, bringing the pandemic total to 434,642.

A coalition of some of Indiana's top hospital systems warned that facilities are struggling to cope with the surge in COVID-19 patients - a sobering reminder that the coronavirus is still spreading quickly in the state despite the arrival of a vaccine this week.

With COVID-19 patient numbers hovering above 3,000 for nearly a month, Indiana hospitals are treating more than four times as many as they were in September and administrators fear they soon could get overwhelmed.

'œLocal hospitals are fast approaching crisis,'ť the Indianapolis Coalition for Patient Safety, which represents several central Indiana health-system systems, said Monday in a statement.

During an online news conference Monday, members of the hospital coalition said they are nearly overwhelmed by a record number of coronavirus patients and painted a grim picture of what has been unfolding in their emergency rooms and intensive care units. They also pleaded with members of the public to continue wearing masks and socially distancing and to forgo in-person holiday gatherings.

December is typically a busy time for hospitals because of flu cases, respiratory infections and other factors. Hospital leaders said that challenge has been compounded by the coronavirus and by the large numbers of staff who are quarantining and unable to work.

Indiana University Health is treating more COVID-19 patients at its facilities than it ever has, said Dr. Michele Saysana, the health system's chief quality and safety officer. If Hoosiers don't change their behavior to reduce the virus' spread, the situation could worsen, as any increase in COVID-19 cases seen from Thanksgiving gatherings bleeds into any surge that follows Christmas get-togethers.

'œThat's a real concern for us,'ť Saysana said. 'œThe holidays are back to back. The way they line up could be a surge on top of a surge.'ť

Franciscan Health Indianapolis has treated record numbers of COVID-19 patients nearly every day for the past two weeks and has had to stop admitting transfers from other hospitals, said its vice president of medical affairs, Dr. Christopher Doehring.

'œIt's certainly stressing us," he said.

Lee Ann Blue, chief nursing officer at Eskenazi Health, said health workers are worn out from the labor-intensive work of treating the surge in COVID-19 patients.

'œThis work is physically and emotionally exhausting and you can see it in their eyes,'ť she said.

Because of visitor restrictions, nurses must watch every day as their patients die alone without relatives by their side, which only adds to the strain, said Jean Putnam, assistant chief nursing officer at Community Health Network.