California will soon expand its list of people eligible for coronavirus vaccination by an additional 4 million to 6 million people, adding the severely disabled and those with health problems that put them at high risk of infection and death, said the state secretary of Health, Dr. Mark Ghaly,.
Among those who will become eligible on March 15 are people with certain diseases of cancer, heart, lung and kidney, as well as pregnant women, people with Down syndrome, organ transplant recipients and severely obese people. They join people aged 65 and over and those in high-risk job descriptions who were already eligible under the state plan.
California has been affected by a shortage of vaccines and Ghaly cannot say how long it will take for the state to vaccinate the estimated 17 million to 19 million people who will be eligible for the vaccine once the new additions are made.
“Without that crystal ball in the allocation, it will be very difficult to respond,” he said. The country’s most populous state can expect to receive more than 1 million doses a week for at least the next few weeks, said Ghaly.
Each of the current vaccines – Pfizer and Moderna – requires two doses for full effectiveness. Therefore, 1 million photos are needed to cover 500,000 people.
Judy Mark, president of Disability Voices United, thanked the state for promoting vaccination for people with disabilities, but said it should be immediate.
“The effective date of March 15 may be too late for many people with disabilities who may die of COVID in the meantime,” she said in a statement.
Ghaly said that extra time is needed for the state to increase capacity. Some people with disabilities or certain health problems will be more difficult to reach because they need to be vaccinated at home, he said.
Governor Gavin Newsom said the state recognizes that those with certain physical and intellectual disabilities are “especially vulnerable”.
“I want the disabled community to know, we listen to you, and we will do more and better to provide access, even in the face of scarcity,” he said while visiting a mass vaccination center in San Francisco.
California is emerging from its worst stage of the pandemic. New cases of viruses and hospitalizations have dropped dramatically in the past three weeks, and deaths that reached 3,500 a week have also started to decline, albeit more slowly.
The state began launching the vaccine in December, when cases and hospitalizations exploded. The authorities first focused on vaccinating people based on the level of risk in their work. Health workers were first in line and the state then added educators, farm workers and emergency workers. Persons in long-term care facilities and persons aged 65 and over are also eligible.
Once the state passes through these groups, it plans to move to an age-based system, rather than one based on job description. The state has not fully developed a plan for age-based criteria.
“We are working to determine what this age group will be and when that date will be triggered. It will be largely driven by vaccine supply, ”said Ghaly.
The state decided to add people with disabilities and health problems of any age after receiving criticism that it was not protecting those most at risk of infection and death by COVID-19.
Still, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, a California surgeon general, said doctors will have to exercise their judgment and not allow everyone to be vaccinated.
“It is really crucial for providers to actually exercise fair recognition of the scarce supply to ensure that those who are most at risk can get access to the vaccine,” she said on Friday on KGO-TV.
This will not be easy for doctors, said Dr. Louise Aronson, a professor of geriatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.
“It will be difficult for patients and it will be difficult for doctors, but the way we go through this is that we all prioritize the highest risk and stay a little more patient for a longer time, which is one of the most difficult questions at the moment of history, ”she said.
California has opened many mass vaccination centers in recent weeks, but they are not operating close to full capacity due to a shortage of vaccines. The city of Los Angeles temporarily closed vaccination sites at Dodger Stadium and four other locations until supplies could be replenished.
“We are all frustrated. We know we could do a lot more if we had the doses available,” said Dr. Paul Simon, director of science for LA County. He said the county could administer about 600,000 doses a week, but is receiving about 200,000.
California has administered 5.5 million doses so far, and more than 1 million people have received them.
Also on Friday, the state released data showing the age, race, sex and municipality of the people who were vaccinated. It covers only health workers, long-term residents and people 65 and older, which means it is not an accurate reflection of the entire California population, state officials said.
Incomplete data is just one piece of information that authorities rely on when trying to distribute vaccines to the most vulnerable people in California. The state has not released a postal code division of vaccines, which can be used to measure whether people in disadvantaged neighborhoods are being vaccinated, but has provided a demographic division of vaccines by county.
The data show that almost a third of vaccines went to whites, almost 16% to Latinos, more than 13% to Americans of Asian origin and less than 3% to blacks. Of the remainder, 14% went to people who identified themselves as multiracial, 12% to those listed as “others” and the rest to “strangers”. The state depends on self-identification or data from healthcare providers.
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Associated Press writers Janie Har in San Francisco and Amy Taxin in Orange County contributed.