Santa Clara County plans to expand COVID-19 vaccination centers amid supply uncertainty

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) – Santa Clara County is moving forward with plans to expand its COVID-19 vaccination centers despite uncertainty over supply – a situation they say is mainly the fault of the federal government.

For now, the county can only accommodate health care workers and those 75 and over.

Demand for the COVID-19 vaccine far exceeds the quantity available.

And in the Bay Area’s largest county, officials say they continue to be crippled by the federal government.

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“We learned a few days ago for example that the federal government was going to release stocks of vaccines which were held for second doses. We learned this (Friday) morning that there was no stock”, a said James Williams, Santa Clara County Legal Counsel.

Williams says transparency is key to building public trust, but the process has been anything but simple.

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“Kaiser and PAMF are responsible for the majority of residents in Santa Clara County, the majority of our residents are their patients, but we don’t have full visibility into what they are doing,” Williams said.

Despite the struggle, county officials are moving ahead with expanding several vaccination sites, building infrastructure in hopes the federal government will pull itself together under a new administration.

Most residents will receive the vaccine from their primary care provider, but the county has already increased its capacity to vaccinate up to 6,000 people per day and plans to do more once the vaccine supply becomes more stable. .

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“Due to this limited and unpredictable supply, we continue to have to limit vaccine eligibility,” said Jennifer Tong, MD, Deputy Chief Medical Officer of the CSVMC.

Hospital systems are overloaded as cases and hospitalizations increase.

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But Stanford Health Care has stepped up to help provide peer support by accepting more than 500 transfers in the past two months alone.

As people anxiously await their turn for the vaccine, medical providers are once again reminding the public of ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“We know how you can protect yourself. We know that if you maintain a social distance and wear a mask, you will be able to protect yourself from this virus, ”said Professor Andra Blomkalns, MD, Stanford School of Medicine.

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