Please find video shot today by a Cedars-Sinai video team. The video shows the freezers where Cedars-Sinai will be storing COVID-19 vaccines. At the end of the b-roll, there is a soundbite from Soniya Gandhi, MD, Associate Chief Medical Officer of Cedars-Sinai Marina del Rey Hospital. Important note: The video shows the freezers where the vaccines will be stored. There are no vaccines in the video. The vaccines will not arrive until next month. Please credit the video to Cedars-Sinai.
Click here to download the video.
Additional information for your reporting:
- Recently, Cedars-Sinai was selected as a Los Angeles County distribution site for a COVID-19 vaccine once it is approved and available for use. We are meeting daily both within Cedars-Sinai and with state and local health officials to coordinate and plan the distribution.
- Cedars-Sinai was chosen as a distribution site because of our ability to store a vaccine at ultra-cold temperatures and our willingness to coordinate an eventual rollout with state and county health agencies.
- The vaccine will be stored in freezers that keep the medicine at a required -80 degrees Celsius. Cedars-Sinai’s pharmacy and clinical teams have vast experience handling and administering vaccines and therapies for infectious diseases. We will follow all protocols established by the drug maker and the FDA.
- Although we understand that frontline healthcare workers will be among the first to be offered a vaccine, we don’t know how public health authorities will prioritize individuals. These decisions will be made the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
Soundtbite from Soniya Gandhi, MD, Associate Chief Medical Officer, Cedars-Sinai Marina del Rey Hospital:
“So Cedars Sinai has freezers that can go to negative 80 degrees Celsius, which is required for the medicine storage. We also have very experienced pharmacy and clinical teams in terms of handling such vaccines and distributing amongst the staff and patients and we’ll continue to follow any protocols both from the FDA as well as the drug maker.”
