Mass Vaccination Is Our 'Ticket Out': Top Advocate Doctor

CHICAGO AREA, IL — Mass vaccination is our “ticket out” of the coronavirus pandemic, a top infectious disease doctor for Advocate Aurora Health said Thursday during a press conference.

Without it, the U.S. could see another two to three years of living with the virus, hundreds of thousands more dead and continued economic disparity, said Robert Citronberg, executive medical director of infectious disease and prevention for Advocate Aurora Health. With the vaccine, he said, life could be back to normal by the end of June 2021.

That's the best case scenario, if enough people get vaccinated. “We don’t get out of this without mass vaccination,” Citronberg said.

Citronberg and two other top doctors with Advocate Aurora Health answered vaccine and COVID-19-related questions during a news conference held via Zoom on the same day the Food and Drug Administration's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee planned to discuss possible emergency use authorization of a coronavirus vaccine by Pfizer. The doctors touched base on how to continue to stay safe and healthy amid what will likely be a lengthy process for rolling out vaccines, when they think children could be inoculated, and their continued concerns over hospitals becoming overloaded with COVID-19 patients as we head into the holidays.

As of Thursday, Advocate Aurora Health is caring for 575 COVID-19 patients across its ten Illinois hospitals. In the Chicago area, 162 patients are being treated at Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, followed by Lutheran General in Park Ridge, where 111 are hospitalized with the virus. Condell Medical Center in Libertyville is treating 69 COVID-19 patients. Here is a look at the number of COVID-19 patients receiving treatment at other area Advocate hospitals:

• South Suburban Hospital: 44 COVID-19 patients
• Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove: 43 patients
• Illinois Masonic Medical Care Center in Chicago: 39
• Sherman Hospital in Elgin: 39
• Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington: 31

Sherman, with 39 currently hospitalized at the Elgin hospital, and Good Shepherd, with 31 COVID-19 patients receiving treatment there.

The hospitals are preparing to begin vaccinating staff next week and are working to prioritize who should be among the first on staff to get the vaccine.

Those at the higher risk of contracting the virus and those spending the most time with COVID-19 patients will be among the first to be vaccinated, including those working in Advocate intensive care units, emergency rooms and COVID units. The Pfizer vaccine, if approved for emergency use, will go first to frontline medical workers and long-term care residents and staff, before being rolled out to others.

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“In four to six weeks, we expect to have immunized all our patient-facing team members,” Citronberg said. They are educating staff on the Pfizer vaccine, which has shown to be 95 percent effective, and urging but not mandating they receive it.

Even as the vaccine is rolled out, masking, keeping your distance from others and practicing good hygiene will be necessary until most people are vaccinated, doctors with Advocate said Thursday. Education over the safety of the vaccine will be key in ensuring mass vaccination, they added.

“If you have the vaccine you may not get sick, but you could pass it along to someone. These measures will be around for several months until we have herd immunity,” Citronberg said.

Citronberg said neither the Pfizer vaccine nor the vaccine by Moderna, which is up for review next week, has been approved for kids. The companies are studying the vaccine for children 12 years and older with the hopes of approving it at some point next year.

“Kids under 12 years are not being studied at this time,” he said. But the good news is that younger kids have been found to be less contagious than adults, he added.

“Hopefully, we will have some good info about children 12 and up next year,” Citronberg said.

Doctors with Advocate say they've seen a recent decline in hospitalizations — “a pleasant surprise" for Chicago area hospitals — but are bracing for another surge as we head into the holiday season.

“We are very concerned,” said Gary Stuck, chief medical officer for Advocate Aurora Health. He urged residents to avoid in-person gatherings and pointed to the “big sacrifices” doctors and nurses are making, risking their lives to treat COVID-19 patients, as a reason to celebrate virtually.

Meanwhile, those treating COVID-19 patients, especially nurses and nurses aides, are stressed and face burnout.

“They have hung in there, and I am very impressed with that,” said Nkem Iroegbu, chief medical officer for Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center. “But they are strained.”

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