The second round of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines have begun to be administered to health workers at Henry Mayo Hospital, officials said.

The second dose of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine was administered to Kathy Brady on Monday, a nurse with the hospital Intensive Care Unit (ICU) who has been caring for COVID-19 patients in Santa Clarita since March.

Brady was the first Henry Mayo employee to receive the first round of vaccine doses in mid-December.

According to pharmacist Courtney Mattley, who administered both doses of the vaccine, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is kept in cold storage, then must be used within five days of being thawed and diluted with saline before injection. After dilution, the vial must be used within six hours.

The tiny vial holds about five full doses of the vaccine, each at about 0.3 milliliters. However, some health professionals discovered they could squeeze out six or seven doses once the diluting agent has been added.

“This vial states that it’s good for at least five doses, and potentially six. If we can get six doses out of each vial we definitely will,” Mattley said previously.

See Related: COVID-19 Vaccine Administered To Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital ICU Nurse

The vaccine is administered in two doses, three weeks apart, with 95% effectiveness 7 days after the second shot.

Henry Mayo Spokesperson Patrick Moody cautioned that although the vaccine is now available to healthcare workers, this was not an excuse for the public to be less vigilant in their work to prevent the spread of COVID-19, especially in the face of higher hospitalization, death, and case rates.

“We (have) had a vaccine for months. It’s 50% to 70% effective. It’s called the mask,” Moody said in December. “So please we just ask everyone to continue to wear a mask, stay home as much as possible, wash your hands and keep socially distanced.”

As of Monday, Jan. 4, Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital had conducted 15,666 COVID-19 tests. Of those, 2,651 had tested positive, and two tests were still pending with Henry Mayo, according to Patrick Moody, spokesperson for the hospital.

There were 98 COVID-19 patients in the hospital as of Saturday, Jan. 2, while 722 patients have been discharged since the hospital’s first case was reported in March 2020, according to Moody.

Five additional deaths were reported Monday, with a total of 78 coronavirus deaths at the hospital, with at least 128 COVID-19 deaths reported across the Santa Clarita Valley since March 2020.

Photo courtesy of Bryant Wieczorek/Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital

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