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San Diego County residents 65 and older can now get the COVID-19 vaccine – provided their health care provider has the doses.
But with the demand for vaccines far exceeding the supply, this is probably a problem.
As it stands, the county has struggled to vaccinate nursing home residents and healthcare workers who fall under the state’s highest priority immunization level. There are 620,000 people in this group, and only about 80,000 have been vaccinated, although county officials say that may be an underestimate.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Wednesday that Californians 65 and older are now eligible for vaccination – a day after the federal government urged states to expand eligibility. The elderly are particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus. About 15% of San Diego County residents aged 80 and over who contracted COVID-19 have died – more than one in seven.
But the state’s announcement is likely to cause some confusion and frustration. Case in point: Scripps Health, one of the two largest healthcare systems in the region, sent the following statement to its members on Wednesday:
“None of the San Diego hospitals have received the vaccines yet to begin distributing to their patients, and we are awaiting news from the government on when to expect them … At this point, please do not call your Scripps doctor. . office because they don’t know when vaccines will be available. “
Alvarado Hospital in La Mesa and Paradise Valley Hospital in National City said they were studying the new guidelines but were not ready to announce any changes. Other systems, including UC San Diego Health and Sharp HealthCare, did not immediately respond.
Over 473,000 San Diegans are 65 years of age or older. So far, the region has received 241,000 doses, according to the latest data from the county. And each person will need two doses of the vaccine for full immunity.
“We just don’t want to create an expectation that everyone 65 and over is just going to show up and get the shot,” Supervisor Nathan Fletcher said at the county coronavirus briefing on Wednesday. “We can only administer the vaccines that we have.”
For now, the county plans to continue using its doses to immunize health workers. The region’s largest vaccination site, located in the Petco Park tailgate parking lot, is on track to vaccinate 5,000 people a day by the end of the week. The plan is to create three more mass vaccination sites, including one to be launched in February in the South Bay and sites in the northern and eastern counties.
By the week of Jan. 25, San Diegans 65 and over should be able to get vaccinated at sites across the county, according to public health official Dr Wilma Wooten. Critical workers such as teachers, grocery store workers and police could soon follow in February.
County officials also said residents of San Diego County will soon be able to do what people living in Philadelphia, Ohio and other parts of the country can already do: sign up to receive alerts on when it is their turn to get the shot so you know when and where to get their shots. The county is working with the state’s public health department to roll out a registration system next week.
The vaccine supply will make or break the county’s plans to vaccinate nearly 1.9 million residents against COVID-19 by July 1 after an initially slow rollout of the vaccine.
To get there, the region will need to climb an average of 23,400 shots per day for the next five months. Right now, San Diego County has about 6,100 shots a day.
Fletcher also said the region plans to expand from four to 12 distribution points: smaller places across the county where people eligible for a vaccine can get their shot if they don’t have access to their health care provider. health.
The county plans to shell out up to $ 100 million to fund these efforts, but hopes the state or federal government will eventually cover the costs.
“We’re taking a leap of faith,” said Fletcher. “We will keep our receipts and hope the refunds come.”
Dr. Davey Smith, head of infectious diseases at UCSD, hopes some of that money will be used to hire the staff needed to receive gunfire throughout the county.
“We can’t always rely on volunteer staff,” Smith said. “We’re going to need real support and real infrastructure, and that comes with money to pay people for their time.”
With the pace of the pandemic showing no signs of slowing down, a vaccine will be essential in stopping the coronavirus. In Wednesday’s COVID-19 follow-up report, the county reported 3,261 new positive cases out of 14,636 total test results for a positive rate of 22%, significantly higher than the two-week average positivity rate of 14.4%.
54 more deaths were announced on Wednesday, bringing the cumulative cost in human lives to just eight in 2,000.
Hospitals continued to walk on water, with the local census – the number of COVID-19 patients collectively occupying hospital beds – dropping from 32 to 1,802 on Tuesday. It was the first time the daily number of COVID-19 patients exceeded 1,800.
Wednesday’s report included 162 new hospitalizations related to COVID. Officials, however, said the total included hospital admissions from the previous days and therefore did not represent a sudden one-day peak.
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