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Due to the state’s unpredictable and low vaccine supply, Santa Clara County has shifted thousands of appointments, county officials said Wednesday.
About 8,500 appointments for Kaiser Permanente patients scheduled in the county between Thursday and March 21 will be transferred to Kaiser to be rescheduled.
The reason for the transfer is that the state has “assured” Kaiser that it will have enough vaccines for its members, while the county has not received “any such commitments” for uninsured and vulnerable residents, county officials said.
Despite an additional allocation of 7,500 Johnson & Johnson vaccines, the county received only 3,000 more doses than last week. The county received 1,400 fewer Moderna injections and 3,510 fewer Pfizer vaccines than the week before, according to county data.
But that’s not because the state has received fewer Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. On the contrary, the state received 29,900 more blows from Moderna and 40,950 more blows from Pfizer.
The state has allocated 40% of vaccines to 400 low-income zip codes in the state, but no zip codes have been identified in Santa Clara County – which may explain why its allocations were lower this week , County Testing and Vaccine Officer Dr Marty Fenstersheib said at the county supervisory board meeting on Tuesday.
“We are not included in this [400 ZIP codes] so once again our equity efforts are threatened by the inadequacy of vaccines and the attention the state has on everywhere but us, ”Fenstersheib said.
At a press conference last week, supervisor Cindy Chavez said the state must “deal with all [counties] enough, “noting the high and disproportionate COVID-19 positivity rates in eastern San Jose and southern county.
The county has the capacity to inoculate 12,000 to 15,000 people per day, but supply constraints allow the county to give 8,000 bites per day, Fenstersheib said.
All those transferred are Kaiser members under the age of 75, according to the county public health department.
The public health department also noted that Kaiser would prioritize scheduling appointments for vaccines through his system for transferred patients.
“The decision to refer these patients to Kaiser for their vaccine appointments was made after careful consideration of the options available,” the Department of Public Health said in a statement. “This transfer of appointments will avoid additional cancellations of vaccination clinics and appointments.”
The county did not cancel any appointments on Wednesday due to the vaccine supply, it only transferred those 8,500 patients from Kaiser, according to the county emergency operations center.
The county maintains that its main priority in terms of immunization is to ensure access to the vaccine for the communities most affected by COVID-19.
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