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Elected officials are under increasing pressure to speed up the vaccination of Californians against the coronavirus, but few seem to agree on how to solve the problem.
Governor Gavin Newsom is taking heat from all sides of the California agenda, which is among the slowest in the country. The governor has promised to deliver 1 million new doses by this weekend, but it’s unclear how that will happen.
On Tuesday, the federal government ordered states to begin administering shots to anyone over 65, in part untangling them from a tiered system accused of widespread delays. California officials were quick to say they would act as early as Wednesday to implement the new guidelines.
“He said he would vaccinate 1 million people in 10 days, so we’ll see,” said Joe Rodota, a political consultant and cabinet secretary to former Governor Pete Wilson. “If he doesn’t make his million Sunday night, Monday will be extremely ugly.”
In San Francisco, a skirmish erupted over whether and how to open mass vaccination sites at sports venues and other places. Supervisor Matt Haney criticized the Mayor of London Breed for not prioritizing such an effort. Officials in Oakland and San Jose plan to use professional sports facilities to speed up vaccinations.
“Let’s make this happen in SF,” Haney tweeted Monday night. “It could be at Oracle, at Kezar, at many sites around town that were used for testing. We can do it – it’s time for the massive and widespread distribution of this vaccine in SF and beyond, under the leadership of our Department of Public Health.
San Francisco is considering mass vaccination options but has not named a specific site. Breed and Health Director Dr Grant Colfax said a massive site would not serve those who need the vaccine most – homeless, uninsured or undocumented – in the early stages of a deployment. The vast majority of San Franciscans, around 95% of the population, will be able to get vaccinated through their private or public health provider, and the city will cover the remaining 5% who are homeless or uninsured.
So far, the health department has distributed 22,150 doses of the vaccine to San Francisco General Hospital, Laguna Honda Hospital and small community clinics, a spokesperson said on Tuesday. Of these, 9,259 were administered.
This is a higher percentage than in the state as a whole, where 816,673 doses of the approximately 2.5 million doses shipped were administered. The slower-than-expected rollout is due to a number of issues, including some healthcare workers refusing the vaccine, unpredictable and sporadic vaccine supplies and, according to the Los Angeles Times, technical issues with software used by the state to coordinate vaccine distribution.
The pace of injections into nursing homes, which in California primarily goes through a federal program with CVS and Walgreens to vaccinate residents, is particularly frustrating, said Dr. Michael Wasserman, former president of the California Association of Long- Term Care Medicine.
“There is nothing that should slow this down,” Wasserman said. “There is no excuse not to vaccinate people who live in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, group homes and the poor women of color who care for them. It is a top priority. There should be no excuse.
California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr Mark Ghaly said on Tuesday he would announce the next day how the new federal guidelines for people 65 and older would work here. The rollout of the vaccine in California prioritizes healthcare workers and nursing home residents, but has left many healthcare providers scrambling to find people outside of this group to take additional doses of the vaccine. perishable vaccine.
“The hope is that we can start implementing (the guidelines) statewide, not county by county but statewide,” Ghaly said. “The first step is to have our thoughtful expert teams go through the new advice, understand how it will lead to certain changes, and get it back to you as soon as possible.”
The change could complicate ongoing immunization efforts in various countries and hospital systems. But it could also speed up the vaccination of older people, who are at greater risk of dying from the virus.
California has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the United States, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which tracks each state. California vaccinates residents at a rate of 2,066 per 100,000 people – far less than West Virginia and South Dakota, which immunize residents at rates of 5,766 and 5,505 per 100,000 people.
Many faster moving states have relaxed their tier-based systems, said Dr Monica Gandhi, infectious disease physician at UCSF.
Federal health officials in December recommended states immunize people by level, based on risk. This meant frontline healthcare workers and nursing home residents were given top priority.
Some observers believe California has tried to adhere too much to its tier-based system. But loosening the rules too much could lead to chaos. Florida, for example, has opened up vaccination to virtually everyone 65 and over, which has led to long lines outside clinics. And age is not the only factor when considering the risk of contracting or dying from the virus.
“It does appear from media reports that things are quite chaotic in Florida and I don’t think we need any more chaos,” said Janet Coffman, professor of health policy at UCSF. “And to say that we are going to do everyone over 65, first come, first served, is not the best way to prioritize. You can have two 65-year-olds, one who is very fit physically with few chronic health issues, who is significantly less at risk than someone else who is 65 and has multiple health issues. chronicles … It’s too broad.
Changing messages complicate the process, said Dr Marty Fenstersheib, vaccine manager for Santa Clara County.
“The constant evolution of state and federal directions has been a major problem,” Fenstersheib said. “Every other day we seem to get a different message from the state or the federal government and then we try to figure out what that even means and how we can pivot or shift to that particular direction.”
When asked what other faster states are doing differently, Ghaly said that California, in seeking to be “really thoughtful, trying to focus on risk, exposure and fairness, has resulted in delays in the distribution of the vaccine in our communities.
“Some states that I know have gone to a lot of effort to create priority groups, watching how we keep a close eye on fairness, have been sort of in the same place as California,” he said. . “We look forward to an additional vaccine to accelerate and do more in this area than we have already done.”
California is set to receive more doses from the federal government soon, as the Trump administration also announced on Tuesday that it will no longer withhold second doses of the vaccine and instead send nearly all available doses to states.
The state is opening mass vaccination sites in anticipation of expanding vaccinations to the general public in the coming weeks. In the Bay Area, the San Mateo County Events Center opened Monday to immunize healthcare workers and will expand to other members of the public when more vaccines become available. Dodger Stadium, Petco Park, Disneyland and Cal Expo have opened or will open soon. The Oakland Coliseum and Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara could also be used.
Editors Erin Allday, Trisha Thadani and Michael Williams contributed to this report.
Catherine Ho is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @Cat_Ho
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