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Local mortuaries are running out of space to contain those who die from COVID-19.
Three hospital mortuaries are completely out of space while four more are nearing capacity, Santa Clara County health officials said on Tuesday.
The county brought in three refrigerated trailers, each with a capacity of 60 bodies. Two were placed in the medical examiner’s office and one in the Bay Area Mortuary.
After this sobering news, Dr Sara Cody, head of public health, announced that the county’s goal is to vaccinate 85% of its eligible population with the two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by the 1st. August. To be eligible, the vaccinated must be 16 years old. old, the age limit for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Depending on the county, there are approximately 1.5 million residents eligible under this standard.
The recommended age for the Moderna vaccine is 18, according to the CDC.
This means that approximately 13,000 vaccines need to be administered per day, every day, for the next six months and 21 days. The county is already far behind its target.
As of January 12, the county had vaccinated just over 52,216 people, using less than half of the 110,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine released so far.
Dr Marty Fenstersheib, the county’s COVID-19 testing manager, acknowledged that there are still significant barriers to achieving the noble goal of vaccination. These barriers include changing state and federal guidelines, uncertain availability of vaccines in the future, and incomplete data on vaccine allocations to county systems.
“It will not be realistic to think that we will reach 100% of the population,” Fenstersheib said. “This has never happened for any vaccine, with the possible exception of smallpox. So we’re looking at what might be helpful in trying to move towards collective immunity. “
Fenstersheib said that achieving an 85% vaccination rate “depends on the availability of vaccines and nothing else goes wrong.”
County officials also noted that the county public health department can only dictate who receives vaccines in health systems under county control. Private hospitals and healthcare providers may differ from state and federal guidelines.
Santa Clara County had 84,726 cumulative COVID-19 cases and 944 deaths as of January 12. At least 1,092 of these cases and 25 of these deaths had occurred in the past few days.
The countywide intensive care capacity was 7% as of Jan. 12, including all extra beds, according to the county public health department.
More than 50% of all intensive care beds are occupied by patients with COVID-19, crowding out non-COVID patients and deferring people with non-emerging health issues. The increase in the number of cases is also weighing on the county’s 911 system.
“As the number of COVID-19 patients in the ICU has increased, it has ousted non-COVID-19 patients,” said Dr. Ahmad Kamal, director of health care preparedness for Santa Clara County, to county supervisors. “What this means is that patients with other health conditions that are quite serious… are not in intensive care.”
This means either care is delayed or patients receive a lower level of care than providers would ideally want, Kamal said.
“We are taking on debt,” Kamal said. “We’re going to pay off this debt for months and years because these people are going to get sicker and their needs will increase. They are not going to go away.
This story will be updated.
Contact Madelyn Reese at [email protected] and follow her @MadelynGReese
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