Charlotte hospital system just received second COVID vaccine. Here’s what that means

Hannah Smoot

Atrium Health received its first shipment of the country’s newest COVID-19 vaccine Monday, making vaccinating front-line health care providers easier.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for the Moderna coronavirus vaccine on Friday.

Atrium received 1,000 vials of that vaccine on Monday — enough for about 10,000 doses.

The Pfizer vaccine, which Atrium received last week, requires ultra-cold storage in specially ordered freezers. By comparison, the Moderna vaccine can be kept in standard freezer at between minus 25 to minus 15 degrees Celsius. That makes storage and transportation much easier.

Because the Moderna vaccine is easier to transport, Atrium is prioritizing rural facilities for first access to the vaccine, including Atrium Health Stanly, Atrium Health Kings Mountain and Atrium Health Anson.

Novant Health and Atrium Health received their first shipment of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine last week. On Monday, Atrium received its first shipment of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
Novant Health and Atrium Health received their first shipment of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine last week. On Monday, Atrium received its first shipment of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.

The authorization of a second vaccine for emergency use means the general public could see widespread vaccination beginning in the spring of next year, Atrium said in a statement Monday. Charlotte’s largest hospital system expects to begin vaccinating the general public in the spring of next year.

In the last week, Atrium has vaccinated more than 1,500 employees, according to the hospital system.

Also last week, Atrium vaccinated the first person in the state, Dr. Katie Passaretti, who called the vaccine “a moment of hope.”

Both the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines are given in two injections. The Pfizer injections are spaced three weeks apart, and Moderna’s doses are spaced four weeks apart.

No serious safety concerns have been noted during either vaccines’ development, though doctors say patients should expect to feel some soreness at the injection site.

Charlotte’s other main hospital system, Novant Health, has said it expects to receive the Moderna vaccine. Novant did not immediately respond to a request checking on the Moderna vaccine.

Latest Stories

  • How much credit should Trump get for the coronavirus vaccines?

    President Trump has claimed credit for the record-breaking speed of vaccine development. How much did his influence help, or hurt, the process?

  • Airlines will be required to bring back 32,000 workers in order to get $15 billion in aid from Congress' long-awaited coronavirus relief package

    The reported deal is a sigh of relief for the struggling industry, but may not be enough - and only lasts through March.

  • Biden Press Secretary Says He ‘Will Not Be Discussing an Investigation of His Son’ with AG Candidates

    President-elect Joe Biden will not be discussing any federal investigation of his son Hunter Biden's business dealings with any candidates for attorney general, Biden's incoming press secretary said Sunday.Jen Psaki was asked by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace whether Biden would promise to allow the U.S. attorney for Delaware to proceed with an investigation into Hunter Biden's taxes.“He will not be discussing an investigation of his son with any attorney general candidates. He will not be discussing it with anyone he is considering for the role. And he will not be discussing it with a future attorney general,” Psaki said.“It will be up to the purview of an attorney general in his administration to determine how to handle any investigation,” continued Psaki, who previously served as former president Barack Obama's communications director. “As you know, U.S. attorneys, that’s a personnel decision, we’re far from there at this point in the process.”Earlier this month, Hunter Biden announced that federal prosecutors were investigating his “tax affairs” but insisted he has handled his finances appropriately.“I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisors,” the younger Biden said of the federal probe in a statement.The former vice president addressed the investigation for the first time last week, saying he is “confident” his son did nothing wrong.Psaki noted that several positions in the administration have yet to be filled and that the administration would “allow the process to work how it should, which is for a Justice Department to be run independently by the attorney general at the top.”

  • Putin critic Navalny reportedly tricks Russian agent into revealing how he was poisoned

    Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has reportedly uncovered details of his own poisoning by successfully duping a Russian agent into revealing them.Navalny, a leading critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is recovering after being poisoned in August. On Monday, CNN reported that an agent from the toxins team at Russia's FSB security service made the "stunning disclosure" that Navalny was poisoned through a nerve agent planted in his underwear.The way the revelation came about was just as stunning: evidently in a 45-minute phone call in which the agent, who was tasked with trailing Navalny, thought he was speaking with an official from Russia's National Security Council -- but in reality, he was speaking with none other than Navalny himself. Navalny disguised his phone number so it looked like that of Russia's FSB headquarters to dupe the agent, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, who ultimately "talked about others involved in the poisoning in the Siberian city of Tomsk, and how he was sent to clean things up," CNN reports. Bellingcat also reported on details from the phone call."Every once in a while, you come across a story, John [Berman], that really leaves your jaw wide open," CNN's Clarissa Ward said on CNN Monday morning. "And this is one of them."Ward added, "Boy, does this conversation punch a giant hole in the Kremlin's narrative, which has always been to say that, 'Well, while the FSB might have been trailing Navlany, that does not prove that they poisoned him.' Well, this certainly would appear to prove it." Read more from Navalny's call at CNN. > EXCLUSIVE: A Russian officer is duped into telling Alexey Navalny how he was poisoned: through his underpants https://t.co/fzrQl65CXc pic.twitter.com/dRBAEFv7ad> > -- New Day (@NewDay) December 21, 2020More stories from theweek.com Arizona GOP chair urges Trump to heed Flynn and 'cross the Rubicon,' alarming people who get the reference Democrats wanted a tax credit for low income families. Republicans wanted a tax break for '3 martini lunches.' Are the worst days of the Trump presidency still ahead?

  • ‘We were complicit’: Lawyer who worked for Trump administration pens op ed apologising to US

    ‘We owe the country our honesty’, says ex DOJ lawyer

  • Kuwait's key reformer, son of late emir, dies at 72

    Kuwait’s Sheikh Nasser Sabah Al Sabah, the eldest son of the late emir, who emerged as an influential reformer in the oil-rich Gulf sheikhdom, died on Sunday, the country’s state-run news agency reported. Sheikh Nasser, who held various government posts over the years including minister of defense and deputy prime minister, had been considered a top contender for crown prince following the death in September of his father, the 91-year-old Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah. Although he drew popular support for his ambitious mega-projects and anti-corruption efforts, he was passed over for his uncle, Sheikh Meshal Al Ahmed Al Jaber Al Sabah, a more cautious choice of heir apparent at a turbulent time for Kuwait’s politics and the wider region.

  • U.S. officials eye new COVID-19 strain in UK, urge vigilance

    The United States is monitoring the new strain of COVID-19 emerging in the United Kingdom, multiple U.S. officials said on Sunday, adding that it was unclear whether the mutated variant had made its way to America. Slaoui, chief scientific adviser for the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed, added that the UK mutation was "very unlikely" to be resistant to current vaccines, saying: "We can't exclude it, but it's not there now." Other health officials from the outgoing Trump administration and the incoming Biden administration also said they were watching the strain rapidly spreading in Great Britain.

  • McCarthy Calls on FBI to Brief Full Intel Committee on Swalwell’s Ties to Alleged Chinese Spy

    House Leader Kevin McCarthy said Sunday that all members of the House Intelligence Committee should receive a classified FBI briefing on Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell’s relationship with a suspected Chinese spy.McCarthy received a closed-door FBI briefing on Swalwell's close ties to Christine Fang, a suspected Chinese intelligence operative, on Friday and said afterwards that he thinks Swalwell should not be on the House Intelligence Committee."I’m going to request that every single member on the House Intelligence Committee gets the exact same briefing from the FBI that I did," McCarthy said Sunday on Fox News. "Because if this individual is sitting on this committee — Eric Swalwell — they’ve got to know the background of what has gone on. I can’t talk about the classified part, but you know what’s out there in the press.”“No one that was in that room could walk out and say Eric Swalwell should be on the intel committee," McCarthy said of the briefing. "I don’t know — they had a briefing before in 2015 and I don’t know what that briefing was like compared to this one, but it could not have been the same.”Between 2011 and 2015, Fang developed close relationships with Swalwell, bundling donations for the up and coming lawmaker and even placing an intern in his office.Since Swalwell's ties to Fang came to light earlier this month, Republicans on the intelligence committee have demanded answers, some even calling for an investigation and for him to be immediately removed from the committee in order to deprive him of the access to classified information that comes with membership on the high-profile panel.Fang, believed to have been acting at the behest of China’s Ministry of State Security, helped fundraise for Swalwell’s 2014 re-election campaign and helped place at least one intern in the California Democrat’s office.Fang also had romantic or sexual relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors over a three-year period. Swalwell, who married shortly afterwards in 2016, declined this week to answer questions about whether his relationship with Fang was sexual or romantic in nature.In 2015, federal investigators briefed Swalwell on their concerns about Fang, at which point he says he severed all his ties with her. However, Swalwell’s brother and father remained connected with Fang on Facebook.Swalwell said Tuesday that he has committed no wrongdoing and expressed confidence that the controversy will not threaten his seat on the House Intelligence Committee.“The one answer that I got out of that briefing was there is no way Eric Swalwell should continue to serve on the intel committee,” McCarthy added, noting that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have to remove Swalwell from the committee if he refuses to step down.

  • More Inside Basketball Star Kevin Love’s Waterfront Tribeca Apartment

    To create his dream home, Love drew inspiration from New York’s industrial past with a hint of the American WestOriginally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • Italian woman mauled to death by five pet Czechoslovakian wolfdogs

    An Italian woman has been mauled to death by her five pet Czechoslovakian wolfdogs, prompting a debate over the danger posed by the increasingly popular crossbreed canine. Mariangela Zaffino, a 74-year-old pensioner, was attacked by her five pet dogs in her apartment in the town of Grugliasco near Turin. She was found by her daughter, who said the dogs, a cross between wild wolves and German shepherd dogs that shares many wolfish characteristics, had never shown any signs of being dangerous in the past. Neighbours, however, have questioned the wisdom of Mrs Zaffino and her daughter keeping five large dogs in a small flat. Police are trying to ascertain what may have prompted the dogs, named Ares, Aylen, Artù, Aragorn and Apache, to attack their owner.

  • Anger as Republican lawmakers who played down pandemic jump vaccine queue

    Members of Congress have been publicly receiving shot to build confidence among Americans

  • US nuclear submarine transits Strait of Hormuz amid tensions

    An American nuclear-powered guided-missile submarine traversed the strategically vital waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula on Monday, the U.S. Navy said, a rare announcement that comes amid rising tensions with Iran. The Navy’s 5th Fleet based in Bahrain said the Ohio-class guided-missile submarine USS Georgia, accompanied by two other warships, passed through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passageway through which a fifth of the world’s oil supplies travel. The unusual transit in the Persian Gulf's shallow waters, aimed at underscoring American military might in the region, follows the killing last month of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an Iranian scientist named by the West as the leader of the Islamic Republic’s disbanded military nuclear program.

  • Big Tech's stealth push to influence the Biden administration

    Silicon Valley is working behind the scenes to secure senior roles for tech allies in lesser-known but still vital parts of president-elect Joe Biden's administration, even as the pushback against Big Tech from progressive groups and regulators grows. The Biden transition team has already stacked its agency review teams with more tech executives than tech critics. It has also added to its staff several officials from Big Tech companies, which emerged as top donors to the campaign.

  • Countries Restrict Travel to U.K. in Effort to Stop Spread of New Coronavirus Strain

    An increasing number of European countries have moved to restrict travel from Britain in an attempt to keep a more contagious strain of the coronavirus from spreading past England’s borders.France suspended freight transit across the English Channel for 48 hours, leaving thousands of truck drivers stuck in their vehicles on Monday as traffic leading to England’s ports came to a standstill. European Union leaders are set to meet on Monday to draw up a “common doctrine” for handling the threat posed by the new variant, which officials say is 70 percent more contagious than other strains of the virus.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson reportedly plans to call a meeting of the government’s emergency committee.French transportation minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari said in a tweet on Monday that France was working to “set up a robust health protocol” to allow traffic leaving Britain to continue, though such a solution remains up in the air.Hours after Johnson announced stricter lockdown restrictions in the U.K. to prevent further spread of the new strain, a number of countries restricted travel from Britain, including Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Ireland Italy and the Netherlands. Poland announced it would suspend flights between the two countries starting Monday night.Hong Kong, Canada, India, Iran, Israel and Russia issued restrictions as well.In the U.S., New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called on the federal government to take action, saying that “right now, this variant in the U.K. is getting on a plane and flying to J.F.K."Meanwhile, British officials said the new strain had been found in several other countries and there is no reason to believe that it causes more serious illness.Estimates of higher transmissibility come from modeling and has not been confirmed by lab experiments, according to Muge Cevik, an infectious disease expert at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and a scientific adviser to the British government.“Over all, I think we need to have a little bit more experimental data,” Cevik told the New York Times. “We can’t entirely rule out the fact that some of this transmissibility data might be related to human behavior.”

  • 25 Indian farmers die during protests as Modi visits temple in sop to angry Sikh farmers

    At least 25 Indian farmers have died during protests against controversial legislation, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi attempted to diffuse growing tensions by making a surprise visit to a Sikh temple in New Delhi on Sunday. Fourteen deaths have been attributed to exposure to the cold, as approximately 500,000 farmers - most of whom are Sikh - continue to sleep in their tractors and blockade roads outside Delhi, despite temperatures dropping to 3°C at night. Ten death occurred in road accidents as farmers travelled to Delhi from the surrounding states of Punjab and Haryana, while an eminent Sikh priest from Haryana shot himself in protest at the new legislation. The farmers say they will continue to occupy the streets, causing ongoing disruption to food supplies in India’s capital, until the proposed farm bills are repealed. On Monday, the protesting farmers are undergoing a day-long hunger strike, while union leaders announced plans to occupy toll booths surrounding Delhi from December 25.

  • Pope snubs Vatican's sci-fi Nativity scene and directs visitors to others

    Pope Francis on Sunday appeared to add his snub to widespread criticism of an unorthodox Nativity scene in St. Peter's Square, telling visitors to visit a nearby exhibition of traditional crèches instead.

  • Family of U.S. teen jailed in Cayman Islands asks Trump for help

    Skylar Mack was sentenced to prison in the Cayman Islands for breaking Covid isolation protocols. Her family has appealed to the U.S. government for help.

  • Trump administration officials subpoenaed in probe into alleged 'extensive and dangerous' political interference at CDC

    Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and CDC Director Robert Redfield have both been subpoenaed by a House subcommittee probing allegations of political interference at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis on Monday subpoenaed Azar and Redfield for previously-requested documents, which committee chair Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said was "necessary because the Select Subcommittee's investigation has revealed that efforts to interfere with scientific work at CDC were far more extensive and dangerous than previously known," The Wall Street Journal reports.Earlier this month, Clyburn said that a CDC official, Dr. Charlotte Kent, alleged to investigators that Redfield ordered the deletion of an email showing a Trump administration appointee was trying to interfere with a scientific report amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Axios reports. And on Monday, Clyburn said that the subcommittee has obtained documents showing "Trump administration appointees attempted to alter or block at least 13 scientific reports related to" COVID-19 over a "period of four months."A spokesperson for HHS previously objected to the "subcommittee's characterization of the conversation with Dr. Kent," calling it "irresponsible," per the Journal. Clyburn said the subpoena requires Redfield and Azar to produce the requested documents by Dec. 30.More stories from theweek.com Arizona GOP chair urges Trump to heed Flynn and 'cross the Rubicon,' alarming people who get the reference Democrats wanted a tax credit for low income families. Republicans wanted a tax break for '3 martini lunches.' Are the worst days of the Trump presidency still ahead?

  • Mexico leader, U.S. president-elect discuss migration

    Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he spoke with U.S. President-elect Joe Biden by phone Saturday, five days after he sent a tardy and somewhat chilly letter of congratulations to Biden. "We reaffirmed our commitment to work together for the good of our peoples and our countries,” López Obrador wrote in his social media accounts. Biden's transition team said the two discussed migration, apparently with a focus on a theme that López Obrador has championed: developing jobs and opportunities so that people won't have to migrate.

  • EU infighting breaks out over ratification of Brexit trade deal

    The EU's ratification plans for the Brexit trade deal are in chaos amid infighting between the European Parliament and the bloc's member states. Simmering inter-institutional rivalry between the Council and Parliament was laid bare after senior MEPs set a deadline of midnight last Sunday for the UK-EU trade agreement to be finished. EU diplomats from the member states made clear that negotiations would continue past the deadline and that they were prepared to sideline the parliament and "provisionally apply" the deal if it could be agreed before the end of year deadline. Unlike the trade deal – which MEPs said they could not ratify before December 31 unless they had the text last Sunday – provisional application does not require a European Parliament vote. December 31 is the legal deadline for the end of the transition period and will be when the UK leaves the Single Market and Customs Union, with or without a deal. MEPs would prefer a "standstill" on current arrangements if a deal is found before the end of the year, which would last until their ratification process is complete. That could take until February.