[ad_1]
Faced with persistent coronavirus vaccine shortages, Sonoma County canceled vaccinations next week for people who had signed up to receive their first vaccines and closed clinics scheduled to vaccinate teachers and others who work with children.
Instead, the county will reserve its insufficient supply of Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to prioritize second doses for people who received their first vaccine earlier this month, a vital step that increases immunity against the virus at about 95%.
Clearing of planned clinics at Rancho Cotate High School in Rohnert Park, which were organized in conjunction with the Sonoma County Office of Education, threatens to reset the long-delayed back-to-school clock for most county students.
“It’s very frustrating,” said Dr Urmila Shende, county vaccine chief. “There is nothing we can do about it.”
Although the county has the infrastructure to deliver over 40,000 doses per week, it expects to receive only enough vaccine to deliver 7,680 doses next week, roughly the same it received this week. but slightly less than the 8,025 doses he received last week, Shende mentioned.
Vaccine stocks could start to swell next week if federal regulators approve the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which only requires one vaccine to be effective. The Biden administration has told California it can expect to receive 380,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccines next week and Gov. Gavin Newsom has said it expects the same amount every week for three weeks.
The distribution of the J&J vaccine still depends on action by the Federal Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although Newsom said he was confident of the rapid approval and availability.
The state, which currently administers around 1.4 million doses per week due to limited supply, announced it will have the capacity to deliver 3 million doses per week starting Monday.
As of Monday, the county-by-county system used to determine vaccine eligibility will be replaced with a single statewide standard, the state health services department said. All health care providers and local health jurisdictions will adopt uniform, state-led eligibility criteria, eliminating confusion over who is eligible to receive the vaccine.
Confusion over eligibility affected the vaccination campaign in Sonoma County, leading to the cancellation of thousands of appointments at the end of January scheduled by people qualified by state standards but not following government guidelines. county.
But the biggest problem today is the vaccine supply, which simply does not meet the public demand for vaccines or even the county’s ability to administer vaccines.
Last week, the national vaccine supply chain was disrupted by severe winter storms that blanketed much of the country. Sonoma County health officials have confirmed this is no longer a problem. Yet the county’s state allocation has stagnated at best lately. And the same goes for other counties, said county vaccination site coordinator Ken Tasseff.
When asked why allowances were declining, Sonoma County supervisor Lynda Hopkins said, “I think we really need to ask the state of California that question.”
Representatives from the California Department of Public Health did not respond to a request for comment on Friday afternoon.
Frustrated by the dwindling supply of doses in the county, Hopkins wondered aloud if the county had been diminished by Blue Shield, who had been hired by the state as a third-party administrator, or TPA, overseeing its new centralized vaccination appointment and delivery system. Blue Shield is expanding the system in three waves, initially focusing on 10 counties in central and southern California. Sonoma and Lake counties are part of the second wave of 28 counties that will begin the transition to the new network on Monday, while Marin, Napa and Mendocino counties are in the third wave that will begin to merge into the system on March 7. .
“For a while we were on a very promising trajectory,” Hopkins said. “Then the TPA process started at the state level, the first wave unfolded, it became very clear that there was a great focus on these first wave TPA counties and all of a sudden , our offer was either flat or declining. ”
As the Blue Shield program grows, MyTurn.ca.gov will become the primary source for Californians to sign up for dates. Residents of Sonoma County can currently sign up to be notified when they become eligible or when appointments open.
For now, Tasseff has said the vaccine flow is so tight that the county is able to meet its existing second-dose appointments only because Kaiser Permanente is “helping us” with 250 doses.
[ad_2]
Source link