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By April 15, every California resident aged 16 and over will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. But the surge in demand that will ensue could prevent most Californians from making early appointments – especially in the Bay Area, where demand is likely higher and vaccine reluctance lower than any other. other urban region of the country.
More than 72% of unvaccinated residents of the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metropolitan area say they will “definitely” receive the vaccine once it becomes available, according to the COVID-19 Household Pulse Survey, a survey the US Census, which collects responses from Americans on a range of questions about their social and economic conditions. That’s a higher percentage than residents of any other major metropolitan area in the country except Seattle.
The other two California metropolitan areas for which the US Census collected data, Los Angeles and Riverside, rank 6th and last, respectively, among the fifteen major metros analyzed; 63% of unvaccinated Angelenos say they will get vaccinated, but only 44% of Riverside residents will. The data, which was collected between March 3 and March 15, is based on a sample of people for each region, so not accurate. It is probably correct within five percentage points. But no matter where it is in this beach, the Bay Area ranks near the top.
While the Seattle metro area may look ahead of the Bay Area in this graph, it’s worth noting that only 29% of adult Seattle residents reported having received a dose of the vaccine so far, up from 42%. of Bay Area residents, according to the survey. .
This means that even though more Bay Area residents have already had access to a vaccine, its unvaccinated residents want to book appointments at rates similar to those in Seattle. Theoretically, the percentage of residents wanting to get vaccinated among those unvaccinated is expected to decline as vaccinations increase – so the Bay Area region is likely to be less reluctant to get vaccinated overall than Seattle.
In the long term, the adoption of vaccines in the Bay Area will help it reduce rates of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
But in the short term, strong regional demand makes vaccine appointments all the more coveted – and as competitive to book as Billie Eilish concert tickets.
“In the Bay Area, appointments happen in minutes,” said Mukesh Aggarwal, software engineer at Intuit and resident of Fremont. After struggling to make appointments for his own elderly parents due to intense local demand and a decentralized registration process, Aggarwal invented Marut Bot, an app that crawls over 100 websites for vaccine appointments available within driving distance of the region. The app, which is named after the Hindu god of wind and storms, then notifies users of new dates through the Telegram chat service.
Aggarwal is also a member of the Bay Area Vaccine Hunters, a Facebook group with more than 19,000 members regularly posting articles about their efforts to make appointments and share tips with one another.
His time in the Facebook group, along with his experience in maintaining the app (which grew to over 8,000 users in a matter of weeks), has taught Aggarwal what the people of the Bay Area are up to. going the extra mile to get their photos, whether by car. at hours or camping away from vaccination sites overnight.
“I see people willing to drive to Sacramento or the Central Valley to make an appointment, and I’ve seen them do it,” he said.
Susie Neilson is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter: @susieneilson
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