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By 
Spencer Custodio |
This story has been updated.
After a fear of the coronavirus vaccines being stored at Soka University, Orange County health officials said on Wednesday evening that the doses could still be administered after speaking with the manufacturer.
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“A refrigeration problem was detected last night, rendering some vaccines unusable at the moment,” County spokeswoman Molly Nichelson said in a text message Wednesday afternoon. “An additional vaccine was brought to fill all the appointments planned at the Soka. No disruption to our vaccination efforts. “
She also said county officials were working with the manufacturer to see if any doses could be recovered.
Nichelson did not say how many vaccines could have been damaged or thrown away.
In an announcement late Wednesday afternoon, county officials said Pfizer determined the vaccines were safe after authorities prevented them from distributing them to be safe.
“After reviewing the details, the manufacturer indicated that the temperature variance did not affect the safety or effectiveness of the vaccine and confirmed that the vaccine could be safely administered according to the normal protocol,” Nichelson said in a text message Wednesday night. “There has been no disruption to the appointment schedule or vaccine delivery at the Soka University Super POD site today.”
Meanwhile, waves of residents have taken to Twitter to complain about the sudden postponement of their next dates.
Most of the rescheduled appointments were for this weekend.
“A second dose # OCCOVID19 vaccination appointments scheduled for February 13 and 14 at @OCGovCA The Super PODs had to be reprogrammed to better manage the vaccine supply. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to the community, ”read a Wednesday afternoon tweet from the County Health Care Agency.
As county public health officials deal with an apparent vaccine reallocation, calls are growing for data on where exactly OC vaccines are going and to immunize those most vulnerable.
Orange County elected officials are increasingly calling on local and state public health officials to release coronavirus vaccination data broken down by zip codes in a bid to target the shots at the worst-affected communities.
“I think this should be mentioned once again, because we all know Latinos are disproportionately behind in immunization rates,” Anaheim city councilor Avelino Valencia said at the meeting. tip Tuesday. “I would like to recommend that we work on improving immunization figures.”
Although Anaheim has a great vaccination site at Disneyland, it is not known how many of the city’s residents have been vaccinated.
Mayor Harry Sidhu joined Avelino and called for vaccines in the hardest hit areas.
Sidhu also said he wanted data on “some of the main zip codes in the neighborhood … we have high cases of COVID.”
Councilor Jose Moreno not only wants zip code data, but also information on people vaccinated at the Disneyland supersite.
“Data that suggests it is largely not Anaheim that is vaccinated in the super pod,” Moreno said, highlighting vaccination demographics for Latinos, which is 11%, according to a County Vaccine Tracker .
“Since our city is 55% Latino and we know it’s a disproportionate working class… we know they’re not the ones getting the vaccine. In the absence of more data, I can only conclude that there is a deep inequality, ”said Moreno.
Santa Ana council members are also pushing the county for zip code data and targeted vaccinations in the city.
In a Zoom meeting with county health officials and community health clinics Last week, Santa Ana Mayor Vicente Sarmiento said county CEO Frank Kim noticed there weren’t many Latinos at the Disneyland super site.
“The demographics really don’t match who are disproportionately affected most, even by his own admission,” Sarmiento said.
At Tuesday’s county supervisors meeting, CO health officer Dr. Clayton Chau current data on vaccine distribution is largely unreliable.
Chau also said officials are working to set up a vaccination site at Santa Ana College and Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove, although no definitive timeline has been given.
Smaller neighborhood immunization clinics are expected to begin rolling out in Anaheim and Santa Ana starting Friday.
Governor Gavin Newsom has hinted that statewide data on immunization demographics will be available soon.
“From all the reporting you’ve seen at the county level, the state will be releasing aggregates… later this week,” Newsom said at a press conference Wednesday at the Fresno Fairgrounds.
Some people chanted “remember Gavin” at his press conference as reminder of efforts against him develop to the point where he is likely to succeed on the ballot.
He has come under fire for some of the public health orders, such as banning al fresco dining while leaving shopping malls open during regional lockdowns that ended last month.
Newsom has also come under heavy criticism for dining at an upscale restaurant with friends and lobbyists at a time when restaurants inside were closed last year.
Questions remain about the completeness of statewide immunization data.
During the CO supervisors’ meeting on Tuesday, Chau said a local hospital official told him that the state is not collecting some of the data that hospitals upload into the vaccine notification system at the hospital. statewide.
“We’re working with their vaccine manager, so she went into the system where she uploaded information to the state every night. She realized that even though she downloaded zip code information, the state doesn’t take the zip code information, ”Chau said.
Meanwhile, Newsom said an additional 100,000 vaccines are shipped directly from federal officials to some 100 pharmacies for “underserved communities.”
Yet the three pharmacies that have opened in OC are far from the hardest hit areas.
Three sites are expected to open at CVS pharmacies in Irvine, Newport Beach and Huntington Beach to immunize people 65 years and older.
Although pharmaceutical vaccines are available to all seniors, concerns have been raised about some residents of the hardest-hit areas struggling to get to CVS clinics.
Dr Shruti Gohil, an infectious disease physician who treats patients with the virus at UC Irvine Medical Center, said she did not understand why these three sites were chosen over locations in Santa Ana, Garden Grove and other hard-hit areas.
“So that confuses me, honestly. I don’t understand why this is the first target, ”Gohil said.
CVS officials did not answer questions about exactly how the sites were chosen.
Gohil said she understands state guidelines might hamper some targeted efforts, but there is still room for maneuver, such as vaccinating the elderly in poorer OC communities.
“I understand, however, that the focus has been to include those 65 and over. So in this population they’re just trying to spread it broadly, ”Gohil said. “But it shouldn’t be just for this group. It really should be focused on the hardest hit communities.
Meanwhile, hospitalizations continue to decline.
As of Wednesday, 1,009 people were hospitalized, including 310 in intensive care units.
But deaths continue to rise.
The virus has now killed 3,451 people, including 35 new deaths reported today, according to the county Health care agency.
Recently reported deaths can go back several weeks due to reporting delays.
Since the start of February, 389 deaths have been reported.
There were 1,187 deaths reported in January, many of which occurred in December as hospitals filled with patients infected with the virus.
The virus has already killed the flu more than five times on an annual average.
It also killed more heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and stroke on an annual average.
For the background, Orange County has recorded an average of around 20,000 deaths per year since 2016, including 543 annual flu deaths, according to state of health data.
According to state mortality statistics, cancer kills more than 4,600 people, heart disease kills more than 2,800, more than 1,400 die of Alzheimer’s disease, and strokes kill more than 1,300 people.
Orange County has already surpassed its annual average of 20,000 deaths, with 23,883 dead in December, according to the latest status data available.
Here are the latest figures on viruses in Orange County from county data:
Infections | Hospitalizations and Deaths | City by city data | Demography
Spencer Custodio is a Voice of OC reporter. You can reach him at [email protected] Follow him on twitter @SpencerCustodio
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