[ad_1]
Two more variants of the coronavirus have been discovered in the Bay Area, making California’s commitment to more rapid and efficient vaccine distribution statewide even more urgent.
The variants, which originated in Brazil and the UK and have spread to many countries, have been identified in the bay area by scientists at Stanford University’s Clinical Virology Lab, confirmed on Sunday. spokesperson Lisa Kim. She provided no information on the location of the infections, but said they were reported to public health authorities on Thursday from samples “taken less than two weeks before the report”.
The spread of the coronavirus mutations comes as California shifts vaccine distribution to Oakland-based health insurance company Blue Shield, with help from Kaiser Permanente, in a bid to speed up what has been the one of the slowest vaccine deployments in the country.
However, plans for faster and more efficient vaccine delivery could be thwarted if Kaiser Permanente, the Oakland-based hospital and health insurance chain that has nearly a quarter of Californians among its customers, can’t get much. more vaccines than she could get. procure.
Kaiser officials say they are hopeful their bid will increase now that the state has called on Blue Shield and Kaiser to take over in a transition planned over the next few weeks.
“We need more vaccines available in the coming weeks, as we expand the priority of healthcare worker vaccines to people over 75 and other eligible populations,” a spokesperson for Kaiser, a day after CEO Greg Adams told members that Kaiser has received “only a fraction of the vaccine needed to immunize” his health workers and members.
“The work that we, Blue Shield, and the state are undertaking is squarely aimed at getting Californians vaccinated as quickly as the supply allows,” the spokesperson said in an email Sunday. He predicted progress and said that ultimately success will depend “on increasing the amount of vaccine received in California.”
Asked whether the supply shortage will hamper Kaiser’s ability to help with statewide distribution, Darrel Ng of the state’s COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force said on Sunday, “The the most important factor in an entity’s ability to obtain more vaccines is the overall vaccine supply. California is limited by supply provided by the federal government. “
Dr Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at UCSF, said the shortage could also be of concern, as Kaiser and Blue Shield have responsibilities to their own patients.
“Anytime you have an organization that is not the government, which is not the Ministry of Public Health, in charge of distribution, you are going to be prejudiced whether you know it or not,” said Chin-Hong.
State officials hailed Blue Shield and Kaiser as experienced California nonprofits that can help the state cope with a near-unprecedented health crisis and immunize its people in a bid to restore economic normality and to reopen schools.
Data released by the state over the weekend shows that providers have ramped up the administration of the vaccine doses they receive from the state. More than 3.4 million shots have been administered, the data shows. That’s about 72 percent of the more than 4.7 million doses the state has distributed to counties and suppliers. State officials caution that numbers may not reflect the accurate picture due to the reporting time lag.
Tatiana Sanchez is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @TatianaYSanchez
[ad_2]
Source link