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There are growing concerns that residents of Los Angeles County will be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by next year, unless supplies of approved vaccines are dramatically increased.
Los Angeles and the rest of the country are struggling to get enough vaccines to meet growing demand, especially after California allowed people 65 and older to access vaccines. But while many are calling for the vaccine, officials say they are only getting a fraction of what they need.
Dr Paul Simon, scientific director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said if weekly vaccine shipments were to increase to 500,000 doses, the county could potentially vaccinate 75% of its adult population by the middle. of summer.
At the current rate, however, he said that “the vaccination effort will likely continue until 2022”.
Mayor Eric Garcetti said that while the pace of vaccinations will likely accelerate as more doses become available and more vaccines are approved, the math is difficult in a county of around 10 million people.
The two vaccines approved for public use in the United States – from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna – require two doses given weeks apart. So, Garcetti said, for “the 7.5 million of the 10 million people that the county-level Department of Public Health expects to be vaccinated,” 15 million doses are needed.
The county receives an average of 160,000 doses per week, he said.
Even with the 853,650 doses the county received on Wednesday, there is a sizable discrepancy of nearly 14.2 million. At the rate of delivery cited by Garcetti, it would take about 88 weeks for enough vaccine to arrive to serve all the Angelenos who need it.
Garcetti said he is confident that manufacturers will be able to meet demand and that the potential arrival of additional vaccines under consideration – including one from the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca and a supply single dose developed by Johnson & Johnson – will increase supply. further.
“We are ready to do more here,” he said. “It’s going to be a sad day when I stand here saying, ‘Dodger Stadium has the capacity to seat 12,000 people, but we only have vaccines for 2,000.'”
Given the huge need in the country’s most populous county, even administering doses to priority groups could take months unless the supply situation improves.
“If you take the math of what the county gets each week – around 160,000 – and you just look at the number of healthcare workers and seniors, we won’t go through them until June,” Garcetti said.
Health officials across California have expressed frustration with the pace of vaccine shipments, saying they have enough capacity and staff, but there aren’t enough vaccines for everyone. .
“We just aren’t getting enough doses of the vaccine to act as quickly as we do, and you would,” LA County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer said this week.
Another problem is that the quantity delivered to health agencies varies from week to week; Officials say this makes long-term vaccination planning and appointment scheduling difficult, if not impossible.
“We are challenged by the unpredictability of supply each week,” said Simon. “And so we really have to wait and see how much we’re going to be allocated before our providers can start making appointments with their patients.”
San Francisco officials this week warned its public health department was at risk of running out of COVID-19 vaccines, after the city’s allocation dropped significantly from a week ago and doses that needed to be layaways have not been replaced.
Although this situation was avoided – thanks to California allowing the use of specific doses of Moderna that had been held up for further safety reviews – health officials said that “the city’s vaccine suppliers don’t have not a sufficient vaccine supply to meet the current population designated by the state to be vaccinated. “
Another bottleneck has formed because a certain number of available doses have to go to second doses within the prescribed period of three or four weeks. In the event of a shortage, fewer vaccines are available for the first doses of the vaccine.
This is certainly the case in LA County, where Simon said on Friday he believed “the majority of next week’s supply will go to second doses.”
“There will be first doses offered, but we want to be very careful, because unfortunately we cannot predict the supply chain even several weeks in advance,” he said.
Simon admitted that there was a tension “between wanting to vaccinate so many people with this first dose [and] trying to ensure that everyone who is vaccinated receives the full sequence of two doses. “
He added, “The vaccine trials were done with this two-dose regimen in mind. We know it works. We do not know exactly what level of protection is obtained if this second dose is delayed. “
Another factor is that the criteria for who can be vaccinated – and when – have been somewhat fluid.
While the state initially focused its efforts on healthcare workers, staff and residents of long-term facilities such as nursing homes, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that those 65-year-olds and more could get vaccinated against COVID-19 – thus increasing the number of eligible Californians. but causing confusion as some counties have delayed vaccination of the newly eligible group in the face of limited supplies.
Data on the number of vaccines administered are difficult to obtain and figures are often delayed. According to the California Department of Public Health, providers reported administering nearly 1.6 million doses statewide on Tuesday.
There is cautious optimism that California is finally pushing back the coronavirus outbreak that has ravaged the state for months. The number of daily infections and hospitalizations with COVID-19 have declined dramatically, although they remain much higher than before the start of the third wave of the pandemic in early November.
The ultimate indicator of the spread of the coronavirus – the number of deaths – remains high. California broke its record for most COVID-19 deaths in a single day on Thursday, with 735.
Although some pandemic indicators appear to be heading in the right direction, officials warn that progress is precarious.
“Despite these promising trends, I want to stress that the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths remains far too high,” said Simon. “So, while there is reason to hope, we must all be vigilant.”
Prevention protocols, such as wearing masks in public, washing hands regularly and avoiding gatherings with people outside of one’s home remain vital as the vaccination effort intensifies, according to the reports. officials and experts.
But each new dose, Garcetti said, is “a little more sun every day, until finally the clouds have broken.”
“Every vaccine that we distribute here and at sites in our city and county is the beginning of the end of this terrible year that we have lived,” he said. “It is the hope of the days to come. It’s a cure for a resuscitated economy, a restored Los Angeles, kids back to school, loved ones nearby – each dose is an injection of hope for the future.
Times editors Maura Dolan, Colleen Shalby, Hayley Smith, and Maya Lau contributed to this report.
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