[ad_1]
As they prepare for nonprofit insurer Blue Shield to take the lead in vaccine distribution in Sonoma County, health officials and local elected officials were skeptical on Wednesday that the move would or another state-led pandemic setback.
Recalling the COVID-19 vaccine debacle here last month at a Rohnert Park clinic run by a state vendor, county officials acknowledged they feared losing control of the vaccination campaign and planned to maintain their network of vaccination clinics in place.
As of March 7, Blue Shield, which California health officials hired last month to be the state’s vaccine administrator, plans to use the network of clinics, health centers and others. county partners for vaccinations. But the insurer will procure the weekly vaccine supply and decide on the number of doses delivered to the various local vaccination sites. As part of its state contract, Blue Shield will also work to ensure that gunfire is fired in a racially fair manner.
“We have a lot of things in place, a Plan B in place to make sure that if their system goes down, we have backups, because we are doing that right now,” said Ken Tasseff, vaccine coordinator. from Sonoma County. . “We don’t take anything apart until we’re sure (Blue Shield) is right.”
Blue Shield will also take control of planning and tracking coronavirus vaccine doses in the county. This week, the health insurance giant took on that role in 10 more counties in California, mostly in the Central Valley.
State officials said the action is aimed at getting residents vaccinated more effectively, increasing public transparency about where vaccine doses are going, and ensuring injections reach the arms of people in affected communities. disproportionate by COVID-19.
County health officials and supervisors discussed the Blue Shield takeover during a press briefing. They hope the move will increase weekly vaccine shipments for the county.
Blue Shield declined on Wednesday to answer several questions from a Democratic press reporter about the new vaccine distribution plan here. Erika Conner, senior spokesperson for Blue Shield, referred the questions to the California Department of Public Health.
Under a state contract from which it will not make any profit, Blue Shield operates a state vaccine distribution network that delivered around 1 million doses to residents this week. As California surpassed 50,000 coronavirus deaths on Wednesday, becoming the first state to reach this sad milestone, the state is counting on Blue Shield to speed up inoculations.
Dr Urmila Shende, the county’s vaccine officer, said local public health staff, who have spent weeks working through issues with the inoculation rollout in the county, will do all they can to ensure a smooth transition with Blue Shield. Still, she warned that there could be problems.
“We have found throughout this whole vaccine deployment process that it is not easy,” said Shende. “So we’re going to be really working hard with the third-party administrator (Blue Shield) to make sure that everything we’ve put in place leads to as successful a deployment as possible.”
Shende believes the county will receive more doses of the vaccine through Blue Shield, as has been the case with some of the counties participating in the first wave of centralized distribution.
The county still does not have enough doses to meet demand from residents. Nonetheless, this week the county expanded vaccine eligibility to a group of more than 60,000 residents, including those aged 65 and older, in addition to education, child care, health food production, emergency services, grocers and restaurateurs.
The county began inoculating residents and staff in healthcare and nursing homes in December, then moved to residents aged 75 and older, then to those aged 70 to 74 before finally aligning with that that the state did in mid-January: start making appointments for people aged 65 and over.
Partnerships with local community health clinics and medical providers have led to a strong network of county vaccination clinics that could inoculate far more people than the 7,680 doses the county received this week, Shende said.
“If we had enough vaccines, we could do at least six times more, if not more,” she said. “So we’ve built our capacity at this point over the past five to six weeks.”
County health worker Dr Sundari Mase said she was concerned that a one-size-fits-all approach to vaccine distribution across the state could create problems, especially in a state with 58 counties of varying sizes. and various demographics.
Supervisor Chris Coursey expressed a lack of confidence in Blue Shield’s online immunization registration system. The county has already experienced the peril of the online appointment system, state provider OptumServe used for a clinic in Rohnert Park last month. With age eligibility then incorrect, the county had to cancel thousands of out-of-the-door appointments.
Lynda Hopkins, chairman of county supervisors, said she was not happy with the loss of local control over COVID-19 vaccinations after all the work done to ensure that the most vulnerable residents of the county be vaccinated first.
“We’re going to move from this constellation approach, where we’re working with trusted community partners who have strong relationships with the communities they serve, to a much more centralized, command and control approach that’s really designed to achieve this vaccine. out the door as fast as possible, ”Hopkins said.
You can contact Editor-in-Chief Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or at [email protected]. On Twitter @pressreno.
[ad_2]
Source link