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In the largest one-day expansion of the Sonoma County coronavirus vaccine clinic network, 11 new vaccination sites opened at local Safeway pharmacies on Monday.
The county has also expanded its campaign against the virus on a second front, making people 70 and over eligible for doses for the first time. Previously, the county had limited its vaccine supply to people 75 years of age or older since it began vaccinating the general public on January 27, although some hospitals and private clinics have vaccinated even younger members of their networks. health using their own allowances.
With two more larger clinics set to open in Windsor and Petaluma later in the week, the county is set to dramatically ramp up its program to vaccinate every consenting adult against a plague that has left at least 277 dead and infected nearly of 27,000 people in Sonoma. County.
“We are successful,” said County Supervisor Susan Gorin. “We are opening more distribution sites. Look at how many people we have vaccinated. And we are lowering the age of eligibility and doing it very successfully. But patience is the key. “
Safeway’s expansion is a major milestone for the county, removing the vaccination campaign from hospitals and mass sites to neighborhood supermarkets. The 11 participating Safeways include four in Santa Rosa and one each in Sevastopol, Rohnert Park, Windsor, Guerneville, Healdsburg, Petaluma and Sonoma. Each is capable of administering 20 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine per day.
However, as with virtually all stages of the immunization effort, this further expansion has been accompanied by confusion. Safeway’s limited meeting times were gone so quickly that many residents of the county were led to believe the login website was down. Late Monday afternoon, those who hadn’t already had a chance to book were looking at a private appointment calendar with only one available slot.
It doesn’t appear to be a local issue. No future appointments were available Monday afternoon within 50 miles of randomly selected zip codes in Sacramento, San Francisco, Fresno, Los Angeles and San Diego on the Albertsons COVID-19 vaccine website, created by the owner of the Safeway business.
Sonoma County Vaccine Chief Dr Urmila Shende and Vaccine Coordinator Ken Tasseff saw the same scenery when they explored the Safeway site on Friday and Saturday. Saturday afternoon, Shende said, everything was booked.
“We realized that this reflected the desire, the demand and the interest, the anxiety that everyone feels about being able to get the vaccine,” Shende said.
She added that the county will inquire about increasing the capacity of some Safeway pharmacies. “But it is the reality of our situation, that we have a limited supply of vaccines and that we have a large population that is eligible for it,” Shende said. “We are trying. But the math is right against us.
A Safeway representative said checking the website remains the best way to get an appointment through the company, rather than calling local pharmacies.
“New appointments are added to the online planner as new vaccines become available,” she said in an email. “The demand is high and appointments are often requested very quickly, and we ask the public to be patient. As dose allowances increase, the possibility of getting an appointment will also increase. “
Even those who were successful in securing Safeway appointments found the process confusing. This includes Susan Herman, who is 72 and lives in Petaluma. On Friday, before the crush, she managed to book a first dose with Safeway. She received a link and waiver form and, later, a secure email requiring an access code that was to be used within an hour. The code given to him was not working.
Unable to reach Safeway customer service, Herman called the local pharmacy directly. After several transfers and a 30-minute wait, the pharmacist told Herman she didn’t have an appointment.
“He then suggested that I go back to their dysfunctional site to reprogram it, telling me there were still vaccines left,” Herman said.
In addition to the new Safeway sites, the county plans to open a vaccination clinic at the Petaluma campus of Santa Rosa Junior College on Tuesday and another at Huerta Gym in Windsor on Wednesday. The first will be managed by Petaluma Health Center, the second by Alliance Medical Center. Each of these sites will have a capacity of 300 doses per day. In addition, CVS Health will begin administering public vaccines at CVS Pharmacy in Sonoma on Thursday.
By the end of the week, Sonoma County is expected to have 19 clinics approved and overseen by county officials, including existing sites in Cloverdale, Guerneville and Sevastopol, as well as Grace Pavilion and Oakmont Village in Santa Rosa. . All are managed by third parties. Tasseff said the cumulative capacity was at least 2,000 doses per day.
Gorin said an additional clinic will open in Sonoma next week at the Veterans Memorial Hall.
These sites do not include the many doses of vaccine administered by the county’s three major hospital systems – Kaiser Permanente, Sutter Health, and St. Joseph Health – or by federally qualified health centers.
All sites will be open to every 70 and over. Monday was the first day the county used that threshold after initially setting the mark at 75 and above. The OptumServe-run clinic in Rohnert Park continues to be reserved for people aged 75 and over, an indication of the line the county is trying to cross between vaccinating its most vulnerable residents and delivering doses to an anxious public as effectively as possible.
People 75 and older make up 7.5% of Sonoma County’s population, but accounted for 65% of COVID-related deaths here. Whether the cutoff is 75 or 70, the county benchmark differs from the statewide recommendation of 65, a misalignment that has caused waves of confusion and frustration among older people trying to get vaccinated. .
As of Monday, 67,745 doses had been administered in the county since mid-December, including 12,277 people having received each of their two recommended doses.
You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or [email protected]. On Twitter @Skinny_Post.
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