In 
Spencer Custodio |
Although the Latin community in Orange County has received only 11% of coronavirus vaccines so far, county officials said the true numbers and demographics of vaccinated people are virtually on the air right now.
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At the public meeting of OC Supervisors on Tuesday, Supervisor Don Wagner asked questions about Voice of OC article published yesterday, which showed San Diego County vaccinating at approximately twice the rate of CO.
According to the Orange County vaccine tracker, about 242,000 people out of the approximately 3.2 million residents received at least one dose of the vaccine in two parts – about 7.5% of the county’s population. A total of 288,000 shots were administered.
The OC tracker is updated weekly and was updated last Thursday.
San Diego County vaccine tracker, which is updated daily, does not give data on how many residents the county vaccinated among the approximately 3.3 million people who live there, but says that approximately 14.1% of the county’s population has received at least one of the 503,000 vaccines administered.
OC Health Care Agency director and health officer Dr. Clayton Chau said the Orange County rate is higher after a recent influx of vaccines.
“So, a week ago, on Sunday, there were more than 300,000 people in Orange County who got the vaccine,” Chau told Wagner. “More than 10%, for sure.”
Wagner said he wanted to clarify the vaccine data publicly to avoid any confusion.
“Why are we below San Diego? What can we do to fix this? Or is it just a question of resources? ” he said.
Chau said San Diego County has more health workers than the OC, which anticipated vaccine numbers early.
That is starting to change after state guidelines expanded vaccination to everyone aged 65 and over, he said.
“Gradually, we saw that we have a few thousand more allocations for us and San Diego has a few thousand fewer,” said Chau. “When we have vaccines in abundance, all of this will be debatable.”
Nearly 16% of vaccines in San Diego County went to the Latin community and 2.1% to the black community, compared with 11% and 1% in the OC, respectively, according to county vaccine trackers.
Chau told Wagner that the current vaccination figures are still unreliable.
“There is no right or wrong, Supervisor. Because the data is very confusing, ”said Chau. “Everyone is trying our best to reconcile our number. We believe – Orange County is not alone – most counties believe that the number reported in the state system is incorrect, it is underreported. “
The confusion over who exactly is being vaccinated comes when state officials are launching their own vaccine registration website, called MyTurn.
It is not clear whether the data collected from the OC vaccine application and website, Othena, will be able to integrate into the state system.
Chau said he spoke with the State Secretary for Health and Human Services, Dr. Mark Ghaly, about the issue.
“I said to him: Look, I have over 600,000 elderly people enrolled in Othena. I will not ask them to re-enroll on MyTurn. Therefore, you need to find a way to integrate and work together. ”
Meanwhile, supervisors and county officials are pressing the state to provide zip code data so that the Health Agency can identify where vaccines are going and reallocate doses to the most affected residents.
“We are not getting postal codes and other data that we need to have at the local level to discover our vaccine implementation plan for vulnerable populations,” said supervisor Lisa Bartlett.
Chau said the best data they have is from the local app.
“So, 90% of people who received the vaccine do not have a postal code attached to it. So we are talking to the state now about what happened there, ”said Chau. “The only correct data system that we can look at is Othena.”
Wagner said he is ready to relocate vaccines to the hardest hit areas in OC.
“I support that we generally move resources to human beings in this county who are the most affected,” said Wagner. “Because science tells me that is where to go.”
Other problems that aggravate the launch of vaccines is the distribution system.
Hospitals receive about 80% of vaccines and the county gets the remaining 20% for use in super-sites or smaller vaccination programs.
“It seems to me that our own reach is not directed to where it could be. We always say ‘Go see your health care provider’. But that is not a very good direction. If 80% of the vaccine is out there somewhere and we are only promoting our 20%, there is something wrong with the message. I think more information about where they are vaccinating, or how people can access that other 80%, would be something we need to do, ”said supervisor Doug Chaffee.
Chau said Health Agency officials have to check with all hospitals that distribute vaccines to obtain accurate vaccination numbers.
Part of the effort is to ensure that all vaccines are placed in people’s arms within a week of receiving doses, or else state officials will relocate the vaccines, Chau said.
Santa Ana city councilors have called on county officials to create vaccination sites in the hard-hit city.
In a letter to the president of supervisors André Do, the mayor of Santa Ana, Vicente Sarmiento, said that the city is ready to roll over as soon as they receive the vaccines.
“On behalf of the city of Santa Ana, I write today to express my concern that our city, one of the most affected communities in Orange County during the current pandemic, is not receiving enough COVID-19 vaccines for its residents. We are especially concerned about the elderly in the city who do not speak English or do not speak English and who have been disproportionately affected by the Coronavirus pandemic, ”said Sarmiento in a letter of 4 February.
The city already has funding and potential vaccine locations, he said.
“The City Council has reserved funds, as well as potential guaranteed locations and teams to assist in the distribution of the vaccine. We are confident that, with our assistance, we can help the county improve its health equity metrics, ”said Sarmiento.
Do said they are in the process of creating a location at Santa Ana College and the county is partnering with OCTA and Abrazar, a Westminster-based community organization that aims to help care for the most vulnerable elderly in OC.
Do said partnerships are needed “to provide free transportation to the elderly who cannot reach the pods because that is part of the difficulty that people face”.
Authorities also plan to create a vaccination site at Christ’s Cathedral in Garden Grove.
“We know that certain ethnic groups that are part of Catholic families have great hesitation in vaccines,” said Chau. We are talking to the Cathedral of Christ to install a medium pod there. ”
The Vatican is asking people to get the vaccine.
“All vaccines recognized as clinically safe and effective can be used in good conscience, with the certainty that the use of such vaccines does not constitute formal cooperation with the abortion from which the cells used in the production of the vaccines are derived,” said the Vatican. said in a December Declaration.
Vatican officials said coronavirus vaccines are for the “common good”.
“In any case, from an ethical point of view, the morality of vaccination depends not only on the duty to care for one’s own health, but also on the duty to seek the common good. In the absence of other means to stop or even prevent the epidemic, the common good can recommend vaccination, mainly to protect the weakest and the most exposed ”, says the statement.
While county officials try to obtain accurate information about the vaccine’s distribution, OC hospitalizations continue to fall.
As of Tuesday, 1,058 people have been hospitalized, including 324 in intensive care units, according to the county. Health Agency.
However, deaths continue to increase.
The virus has already killed 3,416 people, including 33 new deaths reported on Tuesday.
Recently reported deaths may extend to weeks due to delays in notification.
Since the beginning of February, the Health Care Agency has recorded 307 new deaths.
The virus has killed the flu more than five times on an annual average.
It also kills more than heart disease, Alzheimer’s and stroke on an annual average.
For contextual purposes, Orange County has averaged about 20,000 deaths per year since 2016, including 543 annual flu deaths, according to state health data.
According to state mortality statistics, cancer kills more than 4,600 people, heart disease kills more than 2,800, more than 1,400 die from Alzheimer’s disease and strokes kill more than 1,300 people.
Orange County has already surpassed its annual average of 20,000 deaths, with 23,883 people killed in December, according to the latest available state data.
Chau said that the group most at risk of being killed by the virus, the elderly, are becoming increasingly vaccinated.
“We vaccinated more than 100,000 individuals aged 65 and over,” Chau told county supervisors.
But they need to focus on the hardest hit areas before expanding the vaccine’s eligibility, Chau said.
“Mostly postal codes in Anaheim, Santa Ana and Garden Grove have a higher percentage of deaths from COVID if they are caught,” said Chau, adding that authorities need to “pay attention to vaccinating our elderly in these areas. And these areas simply have a larger Latin population. ”
For more details on the COVID-19 vaccine in Orange County, see our Voice of OC information page: http://bit.ly/occovidvaccine.
Here is the latest information on virus numbers in Orange County from county data:
Infections | Hospitalizations and deaths | City to city data | Demography
Spencer Custodio is a reporter on the Voice of OC team. You can reach it at [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @SpencerCustodio